


With This Blood, I Fill You

by Lexalicious70



Category: The Magicians
Genre: AU, Crossover, M/M, NaNoWriMo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:54:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 21
Words: 50,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27831097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexalicious70/pseuds/Lexalicious70
Summary: When a plague starts affecting magicians at Brakebills, Quentin meets Eliot Waugh, a vampire who offers his assistance in finding a cure. Together, along with Eliot's best friend Margo Hanson, the quest takes them all over the world and they meet a vampire named Josef Konstantin, a reclusive man who's hiding a painful past. Together, the group sets out to stop the plague and defend the future of all magical beings.
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh, Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh/Josef Kostan/Margo Hanson
Comments: 8
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> This is what I wrote for NaNoWriMo 2020, (winner!) and I hope you all enjoy it. Be advised that the non-con content is only in one chapter, which is marked with a warning. 
> 
> Thanks to @dreamwvr73 and @machtaholic for their advice and support! I love you guys! 
> 
> Dedicated to Jason and Hale, my Splendid Source

CHAPTER ONE

The campus had the look of a graveyard. 

Quentin Coldwater walked across the large expanse of lawn students called the Sea, the gross brittle beneath his feet. The area’s first frost had stolen in like a clever animal during the night, making the temperature plunge into the 20s. The sunrise hadn’t brought much warmth with it and normally, students would be crossing the Sea in wool overcoats, scarves, and gloves, but Quentin journeyed alone. The sidewalks were equally silent, empty except for a few curled-up leaves, bled dry of their color by the cold, and they crossed Quentin’s path with a listless scraping noise. 

_ It’s like I survived some damned apocalypse, _ Quentin thought to himself as he headed for the Physical Kids cottage, built a few decades earlier to house students who specialized in different types of magic listed under the discipline. Quentin had no such specialty, at least none the staff had yet to find, but with the plague sending students away by the dozens, the college was now nearly empty. 

The damn plague, though--it was something Quentin didn’t like to think about, yet it permeated almost every aspect of his young life as a magician in training. Like most medical plagues, tracing its source proved to be difficult, and finding a cure seemed even harder. It affected those with ambient magic, eating away at it until its victims were left dull and unable to cast even the simplest spell. Most were sent to the campus infirmary, where they were kept comfortable until the virus reached their brains. Once they lost most of their cognitive abilities, the staff wiped their memories clean and sent them home to their families. It was a process Quentin found terrifying--being chosen, learning magic was real, having ambient magic racing through your veins, only to have it snatched away and sent back to a life of mediocrity and illness, being cared for by puzzled doctors until death took you. 

“It’s almost as bad as being sent back for a life as a teacher, or a law clerk or a bank teller,” Quentin muttered to himself. “One might as well be dead.” 

“Talking to yourself again, Quentin?” 

Quentin glanced up, startled out of his troubled thoughts by a familiar voice. Margo Hanson lingered outside the cottage, cigarette in hand. Petite, beautiful, and cynical, Margo had shocked polite society outside of Brakebills by wearing men’s breeches and openly smoking and drinking. She wove obscenities like other women worked with quilting or yarn, yet it never made her appear vulgar. Quentin admired her free way of thinking and speaking, especially as one who did so little of the latter. 

“Hello, Margo. I suppose I was thinking out loud.” 

“Shit, well who can blame you?” She offered him a silk-cut cigarette, which he accepted. “There’s barely enough of us left now to even have a two-sided conversation.” 

Quentin muttered a spell and the end of his cigarette flared to life. Two years his senior and one year ahead of him at Brakebills, Margo nodded her approval. Today she wore dark breeches and a white button-down shirt, a paisley tie draped about the collar. Her oak-colored hair spilled over both shoulders in shiny torrents. 

“Did they send anyone home today?” Quentin asked, and Margo sighed. 

“Mark DeWitt, Janice Eldritch . . . and Alice.” 

Quentin took a deep drag on his cigarette before the sting of tears blurred his vision. 

“Goddamn it all,” he murmured. 

“Quentin, you volunteer at the infirmary--you had to know she wouldn’t get better. No one gets better.” 

“I know,” Quentin replied, forcing the words out. Alice Quinn--melancholy, talented, intelligent--had been something of a kindred spirit to him. One of twelve first-years who had passed the test Brakebills offered to those with possible magical ability, Alice proved to be a formidable conjurer. She’d first shown signs of the illness about two weeks ago, and now, like the other two first-years Margo had named, Alice was gone. Quentin often wondered what the staff told the families of students who were sent home, dull and drooling, and the thought of Alice that way made Quentin’s eyes water again. Had he not been so shy and prone to prolonged fits of melancholia, (something he’d gone to great lengths to conceal outside Brakebills--he had no desire to waste away in an asylum) he and Alice might have become more than friends. 

“I’m sorry, Quentin. It’s a hell of a thing, this plague. I wish . . .” Margo made a vague gesture with one hand, smoke trailing from her cigarette, and Quentin nodded. They’d run out of hope and wishes weeks ago, when the first students showed signs of the disease. “You know. Well then, I’m off!” She said as she pitched her cigarette butt into a nearby ornate bucket filled with damp sand. Quentin glanced up at the cottage. 

“We’re the only ones left now,” he said. “Margo please, do you have to go?” 

“My friend doesn’t want me to stay here anymore. He wants me to drop out and come live with him.” 

“I’m sure your beau means well--” 

Margo snorted. 

“Eliot isn’t my beau!” 

“Fine, but that’s beside the point! I don’t want to stay in the cottage alone!” Alone, and knowing Alice was lost to them. 

“I thought alone was your favorite state of being,” Margo replied, then tugged at his jacket sleeve as he turned to leave. “Hey . . . I was having you on, okay? I guess my friend wouldn’t mind if we both spent the night at his place. He’s got a brownstone in Manhattan.” 

“Is he wealthy?” Quentin asked, picturing an older man with a preference for young women. 

“He got lucky with a few investments,” Margo nodded. “So go grab whatever shit you want to take with you, I want to be there before dark.” 

“Sure, thank you.” Quentin let himself into the cottage. When he’d first moved there, the large common room had vibrated with life and magic, the occupants gathering there to study, drink, talk, laugh, and complain about their study workload and professors. Now it sat silent, as if mourning for the magicians who would never return. Quentin climbed the steps to his room, avoiding a glance at Alice’s door when he reached the landing. The campus quarantine crew had magically sealed it weeks ago. 

Quentin’s own room gave him some comfort, with its overflowing bookshelf and the desk stacked with notebooks. A small leather case sat nearby, filled with fountain pens. His Popper book sat on top of the notebooks and Quentin opened his leather travel bag before tucking the book inside, along with several notebooks, his pens, a change of clothes, and a few toiletries. As he packed, Quentin wondered about Margo’s friend. Margo certainly wasn’t the kind of woman who would accept being kept or even needed caring for, and social norms didn’t make her an acceptable choice for a wife outside Brakebills, so who was this man? Perhaps he was a rich eccentric who wanted to recapture his lost youth by spending time with young people. Whatever the reason, Quentin would endure it rather than the cottage’s silence and the mute reality of Alice’s sealed bedroom door. 


	2. Chapter 2

Despite his low mood, Quentin enjoyed the calm of Manhattan and the stately look of the brownstones that lined the streets in the neighborhood he and Margo now traveled through. Quentin supposed the area would grow at a rapid pace in the coming years and rival maybe Paris or even London as one of the world’s largest cities. 

Margo led him to a brownstone on a street lined with young trees and marched up the steps. Quentin glanced up at the building and counted five floors. 

“Does your friend own this whole building?” 

“Yes, now come on, it’s freezing out here!” She unlocked the door and Quentin jogged up the steps to join her. The ground floor featured an ornate lobby with plush furniture and a grand crystal chandelier. 

“Eliot’s main rooms are on the third floor,” Margo said as she opened the door to a small passenger elevator and worked the hydraulic lever. They rose upward and Quentin felt like a small bird in a golden cage. 

“Pretty fancy,” he observed, and Margo nodded. 

“Eliot likes his conveniences.” She pulled the lever again and the cage jostled to a halt. 

“Here we are,” Margo said as she pushed the elevator door aside and approached the door across the hallway. There was no number there, no brass placard to announce the resident’s name. Quentin expected Margo would knock, but then the door opened and the building’s owner filled the doorway. 

He towered over Quentin by nearly a foot, his frame long and narrow. He lacked the gangly look of most tall, thin men, as his hands were large yet elegant. A mass of ebony curls rioted around his ears and down the nape of his neck. His glance touched Margo and then fixed on Quentin, who suddenly felt like a small bird again--a small bird in the presence of an apex predator. The man was young, too, perhaps Margo’s age and surely no older than 25. Then he smiled, and Quentin felt his heart seize as if this man had reached into his chest with one of those large hands and gripped it, pausing its beat. 

“Margo, hello.” His voice reminded Quentin of wild honey dripping off its comb. “And your guest.” Eliot stepped back to allow them in. “Come in, please.” 

Quentin stepped inside, his eyes wanting to take in the entire room at once, but everything he noticed seemed to be lovelier than the last: the gold embossed sofa, the plush matching chairs, the gilded chandelier, the French fabrics and ornate cane chairs. A wet bar ran the entire length of one wall, and Eliot went to it as Margo set her bags down. Quentin saw that he moved like a large cat and his feet made no sound on the hardwood flooring.

“Would you like a drink, Mr . . . ?” 

“Coldwater. But you can just call me Quentin, that’s fine.” 

“Quentin. What a charming name.” He brought over two glasses of wine the color late fall leaves, that rare yellow-gold, only completely transparent. He handed one to Margo and then the other to Quentin. “I’m Eliot Waugh. Margo tells me that you and she are among the last of the students at Brakebills, that the rest have caught this illness that destroys magic.” 

“Yes. Thank you,” Quentin replied as he accepted the glass and sipped. Chilled and sweet, the flavor seemed to burst across his taste buds before growing mellow. “As a matter of fact, Margo and I are the last ones at the Physical Kids cottage. That’s where they group all the students who--” 

“Who are adept at physical types of magic, yes,” Eliot nodded. Quentin took another sip of wine. 

“So you know about the different disciplines.” 

“I do,” Eliot nodded. Quentin paused, wondering if this enigmatic man was a magician himself. Margo cleared her throat. 

“Quentin didn’t want to stay at the cottage by himself. Not that I can blame him,” she put in, and Eliot nodded as he reclined on the nearby couch. He wore an open satin robe over patterned silk pajamas, the collar trimmed with black fur. 

“Negative and fearful thoughts tend to come to one more quickly when one is alone,” Eliot said. “Please, sit, make yourself comfortable.” 

Quentin chose one of the plush chairs. 

“It’s only--I had a close friend who was mindwiped and sent home today. She was a talented magician and now--” Quentin shook his head. “It’s just so unfair.” 

“Existence is unfair for each of us at one time or another. I’m sorry for your friend.” His gaze turned to Margo. “So. There are only a few left, then.” 

“Maybe a dozen or so, not counting the staff, and we’ve lost some of them as well,” Margo sighed. “Quentin volunteers at the infirmary on campus--how many would you say are there right now, Q?” 

“There aren’t many left there either. Maybe a few dozen, but they’re all infected.” 

“You volunteer at the infirmary?” Eliot asked, and Quentin nodded. 

“It’s the only way I feel I can help.” 

“Aren’t you concerned about catching the virus?” Eliot asked. 

“I’m kind of fatalistic, Mr. Waugh--” 

“Eliot.” 

“Eliot, then,” Quentin nodded. “I figure if I catch it, then that’s magic’s will.” 

“So you see magic as a deity . . . interesting.” His gaze flicked to Margo. “Will you be occupying your usual room?” He asked, and Margo nodded as she picked up her bags. 

“Yes, and if you gentlemen will excuse me, I’m going to unpack and take a bath.” 

“Help yourself, my dear,” Eliot nodded, and Margo vanished down a hallway. Eliot chuckled. “She does love her soaks.” 

“May I ask, how do you know Margo?” Quentin asked, and a smile touched the corners of Eliot’s lips. 

“You wonder if I’m a magician.” 

“The thought had crossed my mind.” Quentin nodded. “If I’m intruding--” 

“Not at all, Quentin, but I must warn you, my explanation might shock you.” 

“Believe me, with this plague striking down my friends and classmates these last few months, I feel like nothing could shock me.” He sipped his wine. 

“Very well.” Eliot sat up and his amber gaze caught Quentin’s. “I used to attend Brakebills. That’s where I met Margo. I was a Physical Kid and possessed telekinesis, something the school was quite interested in, as natural ability like that does not occur very often. But as Margo and I entered our second year at the school, something happened to me.” He leaned forward and Quentin suddenly found himself unable to look away from Eliot’s gaze. “I ventured into the city in search of company that suits me. Company best sought after nightfall. And it was in that search that a creature of the night found me. Found me, and changed me.” 

“Changed you? How?” Quentin asked, the wine glass forgotten in his hand. 

“It made me into something like itself. It took away my former life and made me this.” Eliot gestured to himself. “I am undead, Quentin. I am a vampire.” 

Quentin stared at the man. He wanted to laugh--it made sense to laugh, because after all, what kind of ridiculous statement was that? A vampire? It was a joke, surely, and Eliot would offer a punchline any moment now. But he only continued to hold Quentin’s gaze and the younger magician began to feel strange. 

_ Did he dose my wine? _ Quentin thought to himself, and Eliot smiled. 

“I’m not in the habit of drugging people, Quentin.” 

“You--you could read my thoughts?” 

“I can sense them.” 

“Christ . . . you aren’t joking, are you!” 

“What would I gain from playing you for a fool?” Eliot asked. “No. What I tell you is true.” 

“Does Margo know?” 

“Yes. She and I are the closest of friends. We share almost everything and have even before I was turned that night.” 

“Why are you telling me this?” Quentin asked, and Eliot shifted closer, moving to the end of the couch until less than six or seven inches separated them. 

“Normally, I don’t reveal myself. But I trust Margo’s judgment in humans and I need your help.” 

“My--what could I possibly do for you?” Quentin paled. “Unless you had Margo bring me here as prey?” 

Eliot flashed a grin that both surprised Quentin and gave him that heart-squeezing sensation again. 

“I don’t need Margo to supply me with victims, but there is something about me that sets me apart from others of my kind. I suppose because it’s because of the natural magical abilities that still exist in me. Apart from regular blood meals, I need magical blood to sustain me as well--at least twice a week.” 

Quentin’s nimble mind leaped ahead. 

“And the plague has made magical blood difficult to find.” 

“What a clever young man you are,” Eliot nodded. “And possibly a useful one, if you can bring me blood from the Brakebills infirmary. I know they keep a considerable supply there, and I cannot return there. While I am undead, the staff has me listed as deceased and I can’t locate the campus anymore. Margo can’t bring me in, and she would be hard pressed to explain her presence at the infirmary.” 

“I’m sure I understand,” Quentin nodded, and Eliot smiled. 

“You seem to accept me without question.” 

“I’ve seen quite a few amazing things during my time at Brakebills,” Quentin replied. “The fact that magic is real in the first place, to start. So why would the existence of vampires be impossible?” 

“Indeed.” The amber gaze intensified. “Although I do admit, when the one who made me attacked, I was quite surprised.” 

Quentin couldn’t help but smile at the quiet amusement in the man’s tone. 

“I imagine! But this thing about the magical blood . . . you’re certain?” 

“Yes. I become very ill without it. Please, Quentin, I know you may not be comfortable with the idea of bringing it to me, or with taking it--if you decide to help. But I cannot help my nature or what I require to keep on existing.” 

Quentin remembered his wine and took a long pull on it, letting the flavors calm his unsettled feelings. 

“How much would you need per feeding?” He asked, and Eliot’s worried expression morphed into one of relief. 

“No more than what would fill half of a wine glass. Will you help me?” 

“All right,” Quentin said at last, and Eliot clapped his hands together. 

“Excellent! I knew any friend of Margo’s would be a willing friend to me.” He reached out and touched Quentin’s hand. The skin there tingled and Quentin twitched in surprise. “Thank you, my dear fellow.” 

“Well, it’s the least I can do for you, letting me stay here. You don’t even know me.” 

Eliot got to his feet, but his gaze remained on Quentin. 

“Perhaps I don’t. But I would like to.” 


	3. 3

The following morning, Margo and Quentin returned to Brakebills. Classes had been canceled several weeks previously and the campus now had a ghostly appearance that made Quentin even more nervous than usual. As he headed for the infirmary, Eliot Waugh’s words tumbled around in his mind. 

_ Perhaps I don’t. But I would like to.  _ And on the heels of that, I _ was in search of company that would suit me.  _

_ What does it mean?  _ Quentin asked himself as he climbed the steps to the infirmary.  _ What was he looking for that he couldn’t find here on campus among his own--- _

The answer struck Quentin with such rudeness that he almost stumbled and fell up the last step leading to the infirmary door. He managed the step and broke his fall with the doorjamb, his dark eyes wide. Could it be? Surely not, but . . . 

“Mr. Coldwater!” A voice broke into his thoughts. “Are you ill?” 

He glanced up to see Professor Tann, one of the magical health and wellness professors, staring at him with a mix of concern and apprehension. Quentin managed a smile. 

“No sir. I’m fine--I guess I wasn’t watching where I was going, that’s all. Are you coming back from the infirmary?” 

“Yes, and I’m afraid there’s no good news to report, lad. We have ten cases and the number of healthy students has dwindled away to nearly single numbers. Between you and me, a campus shutdown is imminent.” 

Quentin closed his eyes a moment. 

“I understand. Thank you, sir.”

“Chin up,” Tann said, patting Quentin’s shoulder. “Our professors and their contacts in the magical community outside the campus are working on a cure.” He hurried off then, lighting his pipe, and Quentin made his way to the infirmary. He donned a mask and gloves, as always, and made his volunteer rounds. Most of the work included handing out snacks and juice and offering a kind word to those afflicted--not that it did much good. Once the virus made its way to the brain and devoured the source of magic there, the victims rarely spoke or connected to the real world again. 

_ It might be better if the poor sods died of this thing _ , Quentin thought to himself as he stopped to offer comfort to a second-year student whose rheumy eyes tracked him with difficulty.  _ I don’t know if I would want to live like this, never knowing magic again or perhaps not even knowing who I was anymore.  _ Granted, there were times when Quentin didn’t like himself at all, but self-doubt and bouts of panic were surely preferable to becoming a slab of breathing meat. 

Once Quentin finished his rounds, he checked to see if Professor Jacobson, the infirmary director, was on the floor, but the man’s office door was shut and Quentin could hear a muffled meeting with someone going on within. He hurried away and into the blood stores, where the infirmary stored sterilized magicians’ blood in large ice boxes, the blocks of ice cast upon to prevent them from melting too quickly. His heart beating quickly, Quentin grabbed two packs and stowed them in his jacket pockets before securing the icebox door and assuming a neutral expression before leaving the infirmary. He hurried across the Sea and to the Physical Kids cottage, where Margo waited for him outside. 

“Did you get it?” She asked, puffing on a cigar, and Quentin frowned. 

“You might say hello.” 

“And I might twist your willy if you don’t answer me.” 

“Yes, I got it!” Quentin felt his cheeks go warm. “And don’t talk about my--private things.” 

“We have bigger problems here than your private bits, Quentin. Come on, I want to portal to Manhattan so Eliot can have what he needs.” 

“Can I ask you something?” 

“If you must.” She tossed her cigar into the sand bucket nearby. 

“Did you know Eliot when he was a human?” 

“Yes.” 

“But you weren’t his sweetheart?” 

“I’m no one’s sweetheart.” 

“Last night, Eliot said that although he didn’t know me, perhaps he’d want to.” Quentin paused. “I’ve been trying to understand his meaning ever since.” 

“Let’s go over to the city and I’ll try to explain on the way to Eliot’s place, all right?” She created a portal, a greenish-yellow swirl of oblong light, and the two magicians stepped through and into an alley near Eliot’s brownstone. A late-November rain gave the sidewalks a slate-like sheen and shook the last of the fall leaves from the trees. Quentin materialized an umbrella into his right hand; it was blue where he’d conjured black, but he popped it open anyway and shielded himself and Margo as they stepped onto the sidewalk half a block away from Eliot’s home. 

“Eliot was a complicated person even before he became a vampire,” Margo said as she shifted closer to Quentin to share the umbrella. “But we’ve been friends for almost two years now.” She glanced up at the young magician. “Friends only. Not only because we’re talented magicians, but being friends is all that Eliot desires. It’s all he would desire of any woman.” 

Quentin blinked down at her. 

“Are you certain?” 

“I know him better than anyone. So yes.” A wry smile touched her lips. “Does that interest you, Quentin?” 

Quentin thought of Alice and the time they’d spent together. Their love of books and desire to learn magic bound them together, and Quentin’s brow furrowed as he tried to recall whether he’d ever had the desire to kiss her or if she’d ever made him feel the way Eliot had, even with the few words they’d exchanged. He had admired Alice and found her fine company. Yet . . . 

“People interest me,” he said at last, and Margo burst into laughter. 

“Oh bollocks! There are hermits living in the Andes who are more interested in people than you.” They reached the brownstone and Margo used her key to let them both inside. Quentin leaned his umbrella against a nearby wall to let it dry. Margo opened the gate to the passenger elevator and Quentin stepped inside with her. 

“Just so long as I’m not being used,” he said as they rode toward Eliot’s rooms. 

“You agreed to help him, didn’t you?” 

“Well yes, but--” 

Margo slammed the elevator lever down and the cage came to a jostling halt. Quentin reached out to grab the closed door to steady himself. 

“Here’s the reality,” Margo snapped. “I’ve never seen Eliot react to anyone as he did to you, even when he was mortal. And no matter what he is now, there are still ways he’s vulnerable so if you hurt him, I will end you! Understand me?” 

Quentin nodded, flinching as Margo made a small but fierce fist and waved it under his nose. 

“Yes, yes I understand! Christ!” 

Margo nodded and turned to operate the elevator lever again. 

“I’m glad. Now you’re a clever boy, Quentin, so sort out your feelings.” She stopped the elevator and opened the gate to cross to Eliot’s doorway. There was no need to knock; Eliot must have heard them coming up. Quentin swallowed a gasp, taken aback by Eliot’s appearance. He leaned on the doorjamb, his face slick with sweat, the whites of his eyes reddish-yellow. His curls appeared greasy and uncombed. He moved ahead of Margo, his hands reaching into his pockets for the blood packs. 

“Eliot! My God, are you all right? Here, please, take these,” Quentin said as he offered the packs, and Eliot gave a low growl as he bit into one of the packs. Quentin saw fangs, slim and sharp, flash as he did so. Eliot drained one, then the other, before collapsing back on the couch with a satisfied groan. His pallor improved immediately and his eyes cleared. 

“Oh, you dear boy,” he sighed. “You dear, dear boy.” He sat up again and offered Quentin his hands, which the younger man took. Quentin felt something jump from his fingers to Eliot’s, like joyful, invisible sprites. “Thank you.” 

“I didn’t know you’d be feeling so poorly or I would have brought them sooner.” 

“No, that’s all right. I sleep most of the day.” 

“You do?” 

“Yes . . . I’m primarily a night creature, like most vampires are.” He rose from the couch, seemingly as elegant as he’d been the night before, and went to the bar to pour Margo and Quentin each a glass of white wine. “I must be honest with you, Quentin. I wasn’t sure whether you would return or not.” 

“I’d agreed to help you.” 

“Help me, yes, but I wasn’t certain if you even believed what I’d told you. Despite magic being real, the idea of a vampire whiling away his time in a Manhattan brownstone still seems rather unbelievable, doesn’t it?” 

“Perhaps a little,” Quentin nodded. “But I--uhm . . . I’m glad I could help. Do you feel better?” 

“Much, dear boy, thank you.” Eliot handed over the glasses of wine. “Now, tell me about Brakebills. I don’t suppose there are any improvements?” 

“One of my professors told me this morning that a campus shutdown is quite likely very soon. There aren’t even enough healthy students left to attend classes, and I counted about a dozen in the infirmary today.” 

“All of whom will be sent back to their families by the end of the week,” Margo said after sipping her wine. “And after that . . .” she sighed and shook her head. “After that, we’ll probably be sent back to wherever we came from too.” 

“Stay the night again, the both of you,” Eliot replied. “I think I have something of a plan, but I need to rest and think on it some more.” 


	4. 4

The feather bed in Eliot’s guest room cradled Quentin like a mother’s arms and he slept well until after sunrise. He sat up, blinking at the brightness, and listened for any signs that Margo might still be there. It was possible--like him, she had no Brakebills classes to attend. He wondered where Eliot was and where he slept. He stretched and then cracked his neck. Despite the room’s comfort, his shoulders and the joints of his knees felt sore, as if he’d spent the previous day exercising. 

“You’re finally awake,” Margo said from the bedroom doorway, a steaming cup of tea in hand. Quentin nodded and rubbed his eyes. 

“What time is it?” 

“Almost ten.” 

“Hell,” Quentin muttered. Margo brought him the tea. 

“Here. Earl Grey, Eliot gets it shipped in from London.” 

Quentin accepted the cup and took a sip. 

“Thanks. And Eliot?”   
“He sleeps during the brightest hours of the day, but he left me a note asking if we’d stay until he wakes. He wants to talk to us.” 

“I don’t see much use in going back to campus today anyway,” Quentin sighed and took another taste of the tea. “Damn, this really is good.” 

“Eliot appreciates the finer things,” Margo nodded. “Even before the change.” 

Quentin tucked his bare feet up under his thighs--the brownstone was chilly, as Eliot likely preferred it. 

“Does he know what happened? I mean . . . did he see the one who . . .” 

“Only briefly. He was looking for companionship downtown, after sunset. Sometimes it’s the only way for men like him. He’d found a young man to his liking and they were kissing in an alleyway when Eliot was attacked.” 

“And the other young man?” 

“Killed . . . fed upon. Eliot doesn’t remember much, really. But when he awoke a short time later, he was as he is now.” 

“It seems so random,” Quentin frowned, and Margo nodded. 

“There’s very little information about vampires, even in the older books on supernatural creatures at Brakebills. I’ve tried to help Eliot gather information, but there really isn’t much there.” 

“You must care about him a great deal,” Quentin said, and Margo nodded. 

“It doesn’t matter to me that he’s a vampire. He’s still my friend.” She turned a knowing smile on him. “I think you want to be his friend, too.” 

“Margo, please.” 

“He likes you. He wouldn’t let you stay here otherwise.” 

“I’m sure that’s fascinating but--well, it’s as you said, we’ll likely be sent back home until the virus exhausts itself or the professors find a vaccine.” Quentin hid a yawn with the back of his hand. “We probably won’t see each other for a time until then.” 

Margo rolled her eyes. 

“Congratulations on your seamless denial. There’s food in the pantry if you get hungry.” 

“Where will you be?” 

“Shopping. Eliot may be a creature of the night, but the Ladies’ Mile is only open until 6!” 

___________________________________________________________________________

  
  


Margo returned from her shopping trip as the sun began to set and Eliot reappeared once the sky went dark, making Quentin wonder once again where he slept. He greeted each of them warmly, touching Margo under the chin and taking both of Quentin’s hands briefly, giving them a squeeze. 

“I appreciate you both allowing me some rest.” He glanced at Margo’s shopping bags. “I don’t suppose I need to ask how you spent your day.” 

“Am I a fool, that I would turn down a sale at Macy’s?” Margo asked, pouring herself a glass of wine. Eliot smiled and turned his gaze to Quentin. “And did you make yourself comfortable here?” 

“Yes, thank you. I spent the day reading, mostly.” 

“I do so admire a studious man,” Eliot smiled and draped himself across the couch, once again reminding Quentin of a large, confident cat. “You’re both obviously intelligent people and as such, realize that Brakebills has nothing left for you, at least not now. This virus has effectively wiped out the campus and left all of us with very few choices.” His amber eyes regarded them both. “I cannot remain here. A friend assures me that Paris is free of this virus and that Brakebills Europe is thriving.” 

Quentin flinched as if he’d been slapped. 

“Then . . . you’re leaving New York?” 

“I must go where I can feed, Quentin. Even with your generous assistance, there will soon be nothing left at Brakebills at all. I am not entirely pleased with having to leave--I am comfortable here, but if I’m to survive, I must go to Paris, at least until things return to normal here.” 

“I understand,” Quentin nodded. Eliot sat up. 

“Please, let me finish. I must go to Paris--and I want you both to come with me.” 

“Eliot!” Margo’s eyes widened. “Paris, do you truly mean it?” 

“I do,” Eliot nodded and turned his gaze to Quentin. “I know you haven’t known me long at all, Quentin, but I sense that you trust me. You wouldn’t have helped me otherwise. I won’t force you, of course, but I do hope you agree.” 

Quentin studied his hands. The furthest away he’d ever been from Brooklyn, not counting Brakebills, was a train trip to see his elderly great aunt in New Jersey with his father when he was twelve. 

“You don’t have to worry,” Eliot said. “I have a home in Paris, right on the Seine, and I plan to start a modest vineyard there.” He smiled. “Isn’t the thought of a vampire wine mogul amusing?” 

“I don’t care if you open a medical hospital for donkeys with pecker problems, I’m in!” Margo grinned and went to hug Eliot around the neck. He hugged her, kissed both her cheeks, then looked over Margo’s shoulder at Quentin. 

“I’d like some time to think it over,” Quentin replied. 

“Of course, my dear fellow,” Eliot replied, and Margo turned to take Quentin’s hand. 

“Come on, you can help me pack up our things at Brakebills and I’ll convince you on the way.” She smiled wolfishly and Quentin accepted, getting to his feet. Eliot chuckled. 

“I’d hate to be in your shoes!” He said, and Quentin gave his new friend a wan smile as Margo dragged him toward the door. 

___________________________________________________________________________

Brakebills brooded in the darkness, and Margo freed the wards on the Physical Kids cottage as she and Quentin stepped inside. 

“Quentin, you must know there’s nothing else for it!” She turned and put her hands on his shoulders. “Once there are no more students here, the staff will abandon it too, and then what? You’ll sit here alone, in the dark, until a cure is found months or maybe years from now?” She put a hand under his chin as he tried to look away. “No one likes change, and I know losing Alice was difficult for you, but we have to look to the future now! Look . . . Alice was your friend but I am too. Aren’t I?” 

Quentin closed his eyes a moment. Margo often made it difficult to know where he stood with her, and this question touched him more than he wanted to admit. 

“Of course you are,” he said after a moment. “But this is a whole other country! I don’t speak much French, other than what I’ve learned in my classes here, and I fear I won’t be able to fit in.” 

“Eliot and I will help you. Go on now, pack your things. Use the Velross shrinking spell, it should make things easier.” Margo led him up the stairs and then left him to vanish into her own room. 

Quentin stepped into his room and turned on the light. The cottage seemed chilly--almost as chilly as Eliot’s rooms in the brownstone. 

_ I suppose because it’s so empty _ , Quentin thought to himself as he opened his leather travel bag and several suitcases before pulling his closet and drawers open. He raised his hands, cast the Velross shrinking spell--and then cried out as bolts of pain sunk claws of agony into his temples, blurring his vision. The spell failed, leaving a whiff of ozone behind, and he stumbled back and fell against the wall, stunned. Margo came to the doorway a moment later. 

“Quentin? What the hell happened?” She went and knelt by him and then put a hand to her mouth as she realized irregular spots of blood marred the whites of Quentin’s eyes. He stared up at her, his lips trembling, as he realized suddenly he’d failed to recognize the chills, muscle aches, and fatigue for what they were until now. 

“I’ve got it, Margo,” he murmured. “I’ve got the virus.” 


	5. 5

“Beelzebub's  _ balls _ !” 

Margo glanced up as Eliot came out of the bedroom where he’d tucked Quentin into bed after Margo and the young magician returned from Brakebills. Margo rubbed a hand over her eyes. 

“Eliot--” 

“I asked him to go to the infirmary, to bring me the magical blood.” 

“But he’d been volunteering before that. We really don’t know how long this thing stays in the body before it starts to present itself. All we know is that it doesn’t take long once the person’s magic fails.” 

“There must be a cure.” 

“Must there?” Margo snapped as she filled her wine glass for the third time since their return. “Because if there must be, then why don’t any of our professors or so-called magical experts know it?” 

“I don’t know how to answer that,” Eliot muttered, and Margo drained half her glass, grimacing as if it was medicine instead of wine. 

“Join the fucking club, darling.” 

Eliot closed the bedroom door to let Quentin rest, then began to pace around the living room. He knew it was pointless to opine the general unfairness of life; after all, to meet one such as Quentin and then have him taken away before Eliot could even taste the delicate curves of the man’s lips? That was more than unfair--it seemed like some awful curse. 

“We can’t take him to Paris with us,” Margo said. “He might infect Brakebills Europe.” 

“So what, we just take him back to campus and dump him on the infirmary steps before we head on our merry way?” 

“Of course not! But El . . . every magician out there would tell you that there’s simply no cure for this thing.” 

Eliot went to the window and looked up at the night sky. That afternoon’s rain had tapered off to a light drizzle, and now a gauzy half-moon played hide-and-seek with elongated clouds that changed from mere shadows to silver smears as they raced along and veiled the moon before passing it by again. This virus was a mystery, yet the ways of being a vampire were not. He braced his large, pale hands on the window ledge. 

“There is a cure,” he murmured. 

“What?” 

“I said, there is a cure,” Eliot repeated as he turned to face his friend. Margo’s brow furrowed and he held her gaze, waiting. All at once, her dark eyes widened. 

“El, no!” 

“No? You’d rather he become some husk of a human and shipped back to his home to die?” 

“I . . . they may find a cure and perhaps then he can join us--” 

“Are you willing to wait that long? He may live out the rest of his life that way!” 

“But El, what you’re proposing--you’ve never made another of your kind before! How do you even know it will work? And how do we know whether Quentin would even agree? I know you weren’t given a choice, but Gods, if you can give him one, don’t you think it should be him who makes it?” 

“Then let’s ask him.” Eliot turned and headed for the bedroom and Margo followed, cursing under her breath, as he opened the door. 

Quentin looked small and almost childlike under the sea of blankets Eliot had provided. The skin under his closed eyes had a frightening blue pallor and for a moment, Margo believed her friend had died. Then Quentin opened his eyes, the burst blood vessels in the corneas making his gaze appear weak and unfocused. Eliot went to the bed and sat, patting Quentin’s left hand. 

“You’ll be all right, Quentin,” he murmured, and the young man shook his head. 

“No. No cure.” He looked up at Eliot. “Go. Go to Paris, take Margo . . . so she’s safe.” 

“I have a way to keep both of you safe, but you must listen to me carefully, Quentin. Can you do that?” Eliot asked, resting his hand over his. Quentin nodded. 

“Try.” 

“Good. That’s a good lad.” He leaned closer. “There is a cure for you, Quentin . . . and it’s to become like I am. To let me make you an eternal companion. Because your body dies after the change, so does all disease, weakness, and imperfections. Vampires never age, Quentin, and while we can be killed by certain means, illness can never touch us--save one, and my need for magical blood is unique. If I turn you, the virus dies. But so shall you--at least the person you are now.” He reached out and smoothed a lock of hair from Quentin’s forehead. “I can’t make this choice for you. You must tell me what you want, before the illness robs you of your senses. Do you understand?” 

“Yes,” Quentin murmured. Like some of the other victims he’d helped tend, the virus seemed to progress quickly within him. It had been much the same way with Alice--she’d spent less than two days in the infirmary before the staff declared her senseless and sent her back home to her parents. His own ability to speak and think was fading, but he understood the meaning and weight of Eliot’s words. Eliot’s fingers stroked across his forehead and smoothed back his hair with the touch that awakened longing and silenced questions he’d been asking himself since he and Eliot first met. His humanity was forfeit--the virus would take it from him, as well as his chance to understand why Eliot affected him in such a way. So why allow that to happen when there was another option? He focused his blurry vision on Eliot and shifted his hand over that of the vampire, trying to interlock their fingers. 

“Quentin . . .” Eliot whispered, lifting that hand to his lips and kissing it. 

“Cure me,” Quentin rasped. “Make me . . . like you.” 

Eliot kissed Quentin’s fingers again and set his hand down before pulling the coverlet aside and unbuttoning Quentin’s shirt. He opened the collar, exposing the young man’s throat. Margo stood in the far corner of the room, watching, a hand over her mouth. 

“A moment’s pain, and it will be done,” Eliot murmured, lowering his mouth to Quentin’s skin. Quentin gasped as Eliot’s fangs sunk deep into his jugular and he jerked, his own lips moving slightly as Eliot began to drain him. After the initial bite there was little pain, only the sensation of growing cold, his thoughts dissolving, growing unimportant. He felt Eliot’s fingers touch his lips and he parted them. Something warm and coppery struck them a moment later and his tongue flicked out to taste it. He heard Eliot’s voice, as if through thick wads of cotton. 

“Take more, dear fellow . . . good, yes!” 

Quentin let the warm, rich liquid slide down his throat and his lungs and heart seized a moment later, locking up as Eliot’s blood coursed through him and devoured the last of his humanity. He dallied with darkness for what felt like much longer than it must have been in reality because when he opened his eyes again, he was still in Eliot’s guest bed with Eliot looming over him. His vision cleared, sharpened, and then took on auras he’d never seen before, even as a magician. The stiffness and pain had fled and he sat up, staring at Eliot, as he sensed an unbreakable, invisible thread between them. Eliot gasped laughter, his mouth still stained with a mix of his and Quentin’s blood. 

“It worked. Lord, it worked!” He threw his arms around Quentin and pulled him close, embracing him, as Margo came over to the bed. 

“Quentin? Oh my God!” She said when she saw his eyes; the burst blood vessels were gone and his corneas appeared clear and healthy. His tawny hair, formerly fine and slightly lank, now gleamed copper, russet, and chestnut in the low light, the locks falling to just above his shoulders in loose waves. Eliot looked up at Margo, his amber eyes bright, and he grasped her hand. Quentin threw the covers aside, hunger burning in his veins, like kerosene oil set alight, and he worked his jaw and revealed his new fangs, needle-sharp and paler than frosted glass. Eliot helped him to his feet. 

“The virus is no more,” he smiled, and Quentin looked up at him. 

“I feel . . .” He gazed around the room and paused at Margo. He could hear her heartbeat, the rush of blood moving through her veins, the wild cadence of her breathing. Eliot slipped a hand under his chin and turned his head. 

“Do not meet her eyes too long, Quentin, or she’ll fall under your thrall.” The hand moved up to stroke his cheek. “You’re hungry, I know. Come, I know someone who will give you a willing meal.” He led Quentin from the bedroom. 

“Willing?” Quentin asked, and Eliot went to a panel on the wall to slide its cover aside. It featured three buttons and he pressed the third. 

“It’s impossible to tell how many vampires now live in the world, but what we do know is that killing humans draws the attention of those who want to destroy us. Religious zealots, bounty hunters, and those who believe they are serving a higher being by hunting us. While some do survive by killing, others, like myself, have discovered that there are humans who are fascinated by us and want to help us survive by donating blood meals.” 

Quentin frowned. 

“What do they gain by that?” He asked, and Eliot chuckled. 

“Humans who donate to me are compensated with whatever reward they wish. Money, material gifts . . . you’d be surprised.” 

Eliot’s door buzzer sounded and he went to it, admitting a young woman with short auburn curls and luminous blue eyes. Eliot took her hand and led her over to Quentin. 

“Quentin, this is Claire. Claire, this is Quentin, my companion. I’ve made him like me, and he requires a meal.” 

Claire gave Quentin a brief bow and offered her right wrist. Quentin saw it bruised and dotted with healing scabs. Eliot nodded.

“Go on, it’s all right.” 

Quentin took Claire’s wrist and slipped his fangs into the tender skin there. She made no sound, only twitched, and Eliot watched as Quentin took his first blood meal. 

“Good . . . not too quickly, that’s right. Just enough to sustain you for a time,” Eliot nodded, then touched Quentin’s shoulder. “That should do,” he said, and tugged Quentin back. Quentin let go of the girl’s wrist and licked his lips. Claire gave each of them that odd little bow again and left the apartment without another word. Eliot took a handkerchief from his vest pocket and dabbed at the corner of Quentin’s mouth. 

“Willing feeders at your disposal,” Margo said, and Eliot nodded. 

“It reduces the chances of attracting hunters. They live on the top floor--I’ll have to compensate them until we return from Paris--that is, if the two of you still want to come with me.” 

“Paris,” Margo nodded, and Eliot took her hand. Quentin smiled and took his other hand. 

“Paris.” 


	6. 6

Les Andelys 

Paris, Frace 

1891

Le Chateau Waugh, which commanded breathtaking views of the River Seine and boasted several acres of prime grapevines and its own small winery, glimmered in the mellow gold of a cloudless sunset. Margo sat on the fourth-floor balcony, where she kept rooms to house her ever-growing collection of French clothing and jewelry. Since moving to Paris with Eliot and Quentin, she’d discovered a talent for clothing design and now owned two shops in Les Andelys, where both Parisieans and tourists alike coveted her designs. 

As a vampire, Quentin had been left with little choice but to study magic independently, which he discovered suited him better than guided study. In the year since arriving in the city, he’d sharpened and improved his skills as he searched for a cure to the magic-eating virus, hoping to bring those who had succumbed to it back to their senses. Once the sun set, Quentin contributed to the household funds by opening a small bookstore about a block from their home, open to those who appreciated a nighttime stroll and a browse through Monsieur Coldwater’s shop. 

The sun vanished below the horizon as Margo finished a glass of wine--one of Eliot’s new labels, and then glanced up as a shadow fell over her chair. 

“You’re up early,” she said to Quentin and Eliot, who slept in a chilly yet comfortable bedroom in the home’s roomy basement, in a bed built into the basement floor and surrounded by a magical barrier that kept them safe during their most vulnerable time. During their time in Paris, both he and Quentin had built up a community of feeders, both magical and non-magical, that kept their meals in constant supply. 

“Someone was hungry,” Eliot said, smiling down at his partner and companion. “And not for blood.” 

“El!” Quentin chuckled, and Eliot grinned. Since moving to Paris, he’d adopted the local fashion and now his dark curls hung well past his shoulders and tied back with a dark blue satin ribbon. Quentin’s was of a similar length, only braided and tied back with a gold ribbon. 

“What else is new,” Margo scoffed. “You two are like undead rabbits.” 

Eliot took a seat next to her. 

“Speaking of which, have you considered my offer?” 

“Somewhat,” Margo sighed. “Eliot, I don’t think there are many fashion designers out there that exclusively work at night. Most of them work and create designs during the day.” 

“But we want you with us, always,” Eliot replied. “And you’d be young and beautiful forever.” 

“It’s not a choice I can take lightly.” 

“Of course it’s not,” Quentin said as he sat on Eliot’s other side. “But Eliot’s right, we don’t want to lose you to some human illness--” 

“Look who’s disparaging humans after only being a vampire for a year.” Margo smiled. 

“That’s not what I meant,” Quentin said as he went to her and took both her hands, a gesture of affection for her that he’d picked up from Eliot. “That damned magical virus is still a threat, and there’s dozens of other ways you might get sick.” 

“Just give me time to think it over some more,” Margo replied. Eliot looked out over the valley and the Seine beyond it, nothing but a dark ribbon in the distance this time of day. 

“All right. Have you heard anything about Brakebills U.S.?” Quentin asked, abandoning the other topic for now. He’d known Margo long enough that presenting her with ultimatums was more likely to get you a knee in the privates than an answer. 

“I wrote to Professor Harris, my mentor while I was there. She said the school is recovering slowly from the virus but class sizes are pitiably small. There are only three Physical Kids this semester and none at all the last. The only good news is that fewer kids are being mind-wiped and sent back home. But that might have to do with the school’s actual numbers more than the virus being less aggressive than it was three years ago.” 

“I’ve been thinking, now that my magic is up to par, I want to work on finding a cure for this thing. There are students that might still be saved.” 

“Oh Q,” Eliot sighed. “Magicians all over the world have been looking for a cure and so far they’ve come up with nothing. Do you really think expending any energy on that is worth it?” 

“Seeing as how my companion needs magical blood several times a week or he shrivels and dies like a cut flower, yes,” Quentin replied. Eliot glanced over his shoulder to give Quentin a wry smile. 

“Nonsense. Your humanity is showing, my dear one.” 

“Is it so horrible that I want to find a cure? Or so unbelievable? If not for you, El, the damned thing would have left me a vegetable in the back room of my father’s house instead of here with you in Paris. But what you did for me isn’t a cure--it can’t be.” 

“Of course not,” Eliot said as he tipped his head back and took in the scents and sounds of Les Andelys at night. “There are some who might rather be struck dumb than become what we are. It’s a prejudice, but I accept it.” 

“I just feel that maybe I was spared because I can help,” Quentin said, rising from his chair, and Eliot reached out to tug him into his lap. 

“Don’t worry yourself so!” 

“But what if I was?” 

Eliot nuzzled his neck. 

“I spared you, Quentin, because you asked it. Do you really think some higher purpose is choosing you now?” 

“No, of course not! It’s something I feel in myself, El. I’m happy here, and with the two of you, but what kind of magician would I be if I sat idly by and allowed this virus to reach us here, or to spread to other parts of the world until there is no one left with ambient magic at all? It--it guiles me!” 

“All right, dearest, all right.” Eliot ran a hand through Quentin’s hair. “What do you want to do?” 

“I want to add a few extra rooms on to the bookstore so I have room to work. And I want to make a few trips--London, Italy, maybe Greece--to talk to some older magicians about what they might know.” 

“And do you insist on making these trips alone?” Eliot asked. Quentin turned on Eliot’s lap to face him. 

“No, in fact, I want you to come with me. They wouldn’t take long and we could return here straight away so I can apply what I learn to my research. I wouldn’t ask you to leave the chateau permanently and I wouldn’t want to either, El. I’m happy here.” 

“At least as happy as creatures like us can be, anyway.” Eliot amended, touching Quentin’s cheek. “All right, make your plans for the bookstore’s expansion and for the travel. Margo, will you be joining us?” 

“I have some dress orders to fulfill, so I believe I’ll stay behind. But Q, if I can help you out at all with the magical end of things, I will.” 

The moonlight made Quentin’s answering smile radiant. 

“Thanks, Margo.” 

___________________________________________________________________________

Over the next few weeks, Quentin arranged for craftsmen to come to the bookstore during the day and add several rooms extending from the rear of the store. He covered his absence with talks of brief book-buying trips and because the people of Les Andelys liked the American trio, the workers never questioned it. As November approached and the weather grew colder, Quentin secured several round-trip train tickets for himself and Eliot. While either could travel by magic, it depleted their energy quicker and increased their need for blood. 

“We can hunt as we travel,” Eliot said as he and Quentin packed. “There’s no need to kill, of course, not unless we have to.” 

“And you have your flask for the magical blood,” Quentin nodded. 

Years earlier, before the plague and when Eliot was still human, he’d created a flask that carried up to six times its own size in liquid. In the past, he’d used it for scotch or other hard liquors; now, he filled it with magician’s blood and it carried enough to last him several days if he was careful. 

“I may have to strengthen the spell,” Eliot nodded. “While we might get stronger as the years go by, magic tends to unravel.” 

“El . . .” Quentin turned to his partner. “You don’t think it’s foolish, do you? Wanting to find this cure?” 

Eliot reached out and smoothed back a lock of hair that had found its way free of Quentin’s braid. 

“No. I find it . . . altruistic. That’s an unusual quality in a vampire.” 

“But you’re a good person,” Quentin noted, leaning into Eliot’s touch. 

“What a terrible thing to say, and don’t you dare spread it around.” Eliot wagged a finger at him, which he pretended to bite. Eliot tapped him on the tip of his nose, as if Quentin were a willful house cat. “And besides, I was at Brakebills too once. So I understand why you might want to find a cure for this damnable thing.” Eliot turned and closed one of his suitcases. “You’d better finish packing your things, our train to London leaves at midnight.” 

___________________________________________________________________________

The two vampires traveled to London, where they stayed at a rented flat for a week while Quentin collected spell ingredients and tracked his progress in a leather-bound notebook that he carried in his vest. The November weather soaked London in rain for days at a time, which helped Quentin visit shops during the day if he needed to. From London, they traveled on to Italy by steamship, where Eliot rented them a house on the canal. 

“Are you sure you’re a vampire and not part merman?” Quentin teased one evening as he spread his papers out on a long table in the main room of their rented home. “You always settle near water.” 

“I was landlocked as a boy and I loathed it.” Eliot took a long sip from his flask and closed his eyes in pleasure as the magical blood coursed through him. “Being near water now soothes me. Speaking of which, when can we expect to return to Paris? Margo’s letters say the weather there is getting worse.” He looked over Quentin’s shoulder as his partner opened his notebook, stroking a hand over his hair. “You’ve worked so hard for so little information.” 

“At least I’ve found a few clues to what this thing might be and where it came from.” 

“Oh? And where’s that?” 

“Lithuania.” He made a few notations and Eliot tucked his flask away. 

“Lithuania. Are you sure of this?” 

“No. But I will be when I go there.” 

“You mean we, don’t you?” 

Quentin turned from his work. 

“Eliot, you’re the light of my heart and the one who made me. I love you more than I ever thought it possible to love another.” 

Eliot raised a brow. 

“And I you. But that’s not all there is to this, is it.” 

“I’m afraid not.” Quentin got to his feet and faced his partner. “I want you to go back to Paris while I continue on to Eastern Europe.” 

Eliot gave a short bark of laughter. 

“I think not!” 

“Except you must,” Quentin replied. “Margo can’t run my business and hers alone for much longer. She needs your help, and I can’t leave this possibility behind before I know whether it means anything.” Quentin paused, choosing his next words carefully. “I know that sometimes you think of me as your junior. And maybe in some ways that’s true, but I’ve done a great deal of growing up since the virus came to Brakebills, and I can--I can handle myself.” He said, knowing that any insinuation that he didn’t need Eliot to care for him might hurt his lover--he could be sensitive about such things. 

“Much of that area is untraveled!” Eliot argued. 

“Yes, and that’s why I can’t go home without knowing whether it holds the key to finding a cure for the virus.” 

Eliot folded his long arms over his chest. 

“I don’t like this,” he said. “Not at all, Quentin!” 

“I don’t either, my love. But please . . .” he reached up and stroked Eliot’s face. “Please don’t say you’ll stop me. Say you trust me.” 

“Oh, Q.” Eliot slid his arms around the smaller man, held him close. “If not you, then no one, anywhere.” He closed his eyes a moment, one hand stroking along Quentin’s back. “All right then. I’ll return to Paris--you’re right about Margo, after all, and she did sound a bit frazzled in her last letter. I don’t think she’d be thrilled if I wrote back about extending the trip.” He slipped a hand under Quentin’s chin, tilted his head upward, and kissed his lips. “It’s almost sunrise. Come to bed, keep me warm.” 

Quentin shivered as the kisses sent tendrils of excitement down his spine. 

“I thought you preferred it cold,” he murmured against Eliot’s chest, and the touch of Eliot’s hand at his hip made a promise. 

“Not when it’s you providing the warmth, my firefly. Come.” 


	7. 7

Vilnius, Lithuania 

Three weeks later 

“Sir? I have news.” 

“What is it, Phineas?” A man who looked to be perhaps 25 years of age, possibly younger, glanced up from the ornate rolltop desk, where he sat writing a letter. He wore tailored slacks, a plum-colored shirt, and a matching vest, along with black calfskin boots. His fountain pen continued to scratch along the paper as he spoke. 

“News from America. The magic plague is continuing to affect magicians at Brakebills School there, in the state of New York.” 

“Oh?” 

“Yes, sir.” Phineas, grey-haired, rather stooped and built like an aged crane, brought several sheafs of paper to his master on a tray. “The information is here, sent by intelligence working in the community there.” 

“Thank you.” Josef Konstantin glanced up from his letter and took the pages from the tray. His ginger-brown hair fell across his forehead as he bent his head to read it, and he pushed it back in an absent manner. “Hmmh,” he mused to his servant. “I’ve said it before, Phin, it’s what humans deserve for meddling with energies and forces that are not theirs to command.” 

“Yes, sir. However, there are rumors of American magicians coming to Europe in search of a cure.” 

“That would be ill-advised,” Josef replied. His voice, educated and softened with a Lithuanian lilt, turned peevish. “My people have plenty of problems surviving as it is without droves of American magicians invading our borders.” He set the pages aside. 

“Yes sir, except I myself heard one rumor in the village today, one that troubles me.” 

“Do tell.” 

“I was in the tea shop when I overheard two ladies say a young man with an American accent was in Vilnius, alone and looking for a room to rent. They said he spoke with a kind of urgency, as if he was on an important errand.” 

Josef stroked a hand over his chin. 

“Did these women say if he’d found lodgings in town?” 

“Yes,” Phineas nodded. “At the tavern.” 

Josef rose from his desk. 

“This might bear looking into, Phineas. If the American is a magician, he needs to be shown out of Lithuania. Thank you, that’s all for now.” 

The old man bowed and left the room. Josef went over to the window, a custom-built floor-to-ceiling model that unfolded outward and commanded impressive views of Mount Juozapinė. While Josef’s home wasn’t quite old or foreboding enough to be a proper castle, many people in the village still thought of it as such because it sat on a hill overlooking the rest of the town. Josef stood there, taking in the moonlight, frowning over the thought of a magician--an  _ American _ magician, no less, in his territory. 

As a vampire, Josef wasn’t normally a territorial creature. Born in Ireland, he’d seen his family murdered by British forces during the Irish Rebellion of 1798. His father, a competent horseman, and breeder, joined the cause when Josef was 19 and died during the Battle of Vinegar Hill. The British sacked many of the farming communities during the uprising, Josef’s family included, and claimed the horses and provisions as their own. When Josef tried to fight the soldiers, they set fire to the family cottage with his mother, twin sisters, and infant sister inside of it. The soldiers bound Josef and dragged him away, forcing him to walk, his hands bound, behind a wagon as his family screamed and burned to death. The soldiers who took him promptly sold him to the head of a merchant ship, to a captain who was not particular about where his cargo came from. Soon after, Josef found himself caged in the hold, bound for the Barbary slave trade. 

On the second night of the journey, some of the ship’s sailors made their way down into the prison hold to seek what they couldn’t find while at sea, and Josef had no means to fight them off. Exhausted, agonized over the loss of his family and starving, he endured the assaults one by one. When the fourth man loomed over him, grinning a grin full of blackened teeth, a dark shape appeared in the hold and blotted out the ceiling before seeming to engulf the grinning man and then his companions, one by one. Blood spattered across one side of the barred hold in a high-pressure freshet and Josef, dying of blood loss from the terrible assaults, watched in stunned disbelief as a beautiful auburn-haired man loomed out of the shadows, blood on his chin, his eyes flaring silver, ivory fangs glimmering in the darkness. The creature never spoke; instead, he slipped his fangs into Josef’s neck and drained his life’s blood before creating a cut along one inner wrist and letting hot, thick blood fall against Josef’s lips until he tasted it and then drank eagerly from the source. Moments later he was dead, and after that, undead, as he awoke from that death to discover he was a vampire. 

The one who made him vanished shortly after Josef awoke, staring at him with those flaring eyes before melting into the shadows of the ship’s prison hold. Josef survived by feeding on the remainder of the sailors, including the captain, and allowed the ship to drift until it reached the Baltic Sea and ran aground near Belarus. Josef left the ship behind and traveled by night across the countryside, following the Dysna River (although he did not know its name then.) He survived on the blood of sheep, cows, and other cattle as he learned to hunt and take what he needed. He eventually crossed the border into Lithuania, where he spent several miserable months on the edge of survival until a vampire named Matis Gemdimis found him and took him under his tutelage, where he learned the finer points of hunting and how to pass for a human to avoid being hunted himself. 

The years Josef lived with Matis were some of the happiest he’d ever known, if vampires can truly know happiness. The older, more experienced vampire, with his salt-and-pepper curly hair and clever green eyes, taught Josef not only how to speak Lithuanian but also Russian, Polish, and French. They invested in real estate as the country grew and became quite wealthy. In 1838 he and Matis bought the house on the hill, overlooking Vilnius. It was in February of 1890, just one year earlier, that Josef’s life unraveled again, when a magician and bounty hunter from Poland stalked and murdered Matis to collect the reward, offered by a private council back in Warsaw. Josef found his friend and mentor about a mile from their home, his heart and head removed. The hunter had tossed the head in some bushes about a quarter mile from the body, after removing Matis’ fangs. Since then, Josef lived in the roomy five-story house with his servant, the aging Phineas, and sought to discover the identity of the magician who’d murdered Matis. 

“Magicians,” Josef muttered to himself now. “Pretenders and thieves of the mystical energies!” He looked down at the village below, slumbering in the moonlight. “Whoever this upstart is, he’s going to regret ever stepping foot in Vilnius!” 

___________________________________________________________________________

The next evening, after rest and a hunt, Josef ventured into the village, where most who lived there knew him as a real estate fellow and bachelor. Some of the younger women (and a number of older ones) often tried to catch his eye, but there was an insular way about Josef beyond his polite smile and impressive manners. Some thought privately that perhaps Matis had been more than a mentor, and that the young man still grieved, even all these years later. Still, most of the villagers found him polite, agreeable, and generous when it came to him buying wares at the local shops. This evening though, as he stepped into the Weaver’s Nest Tavern and Inn, those enjoying their ale noticed that Master Konstantin looked watchful, even angry. He approached the bar and the inn’s owner, Dovydas Gallnis, blinked. He knew that Josef was not a drinking man. 

“Josef,” he greeted the young man. Josef nodded. 

“Dovydas, hello.” 

“I don’t suppose I can offer you an ale.” 

“No, thank you. I came down for some information.” 

“What kind of information?” 

“My manservant, Phineas, told me that he heard of an American stranger in town. And that he might be staying here, at the inn.” 

The portly innkeeper nodded. 

“Yes, it’s true. I rented him a room under the eaves.” 

Josef slipped his hands into his pockets so the innkeeper didn’t see the way his fists clenched. 

“I want to speak with him.” 

“He’s not here right now. He left after dinner, said something about gathering some herbs along the river. Thought it was odd, doing such a thing by moonlight, but Americans are a strange sort anyway.” 

“Indeed they are,” Josef nodded and left a few coins on the counter. “Thank you.” 

Dovydas’ wife, Laima, came out of the kitchen with several loaves of fresh bread, her dark hair done up in a white kerchief, the tray pressed against her ample breasts. 

“Was that Josef I saw leaving?” 

“It was. He wanted information about that American, the one staying in the room over the eaves.” 

“And what did you tell him?” 

“The truth--but I didn’t like saying much at all if you want to know, Laima. Josef looked angry and he so rarely looks that way.” The innkeeper sighed and continued to wipe down the bar, pausing to stash the coins Josef had given him in his apron. “I hope I haven’t made some terrible mistake.” 

___________________________________________________________________________

The Dysna River flowed a dull pewter in the light of the moon and Quentin crept along its banks as he searched for a particular root that might assist him in his spellwork once he returned to his room at the inn. He found it difficult to concentrate--he missed Margo and Eliot, missed their voices, the way their laughter sounded, and Eliot’s touch. 

Especially Eliot’s touch. 

_ Focus, Quentin, _ he told himself for the third time in the past hour.  _ You won’t be able to help anyone unless you focus!  _

He cast a Chakril’s mini sun as the moon hid behind a cloud and robbed him of its light. He stumbled over a fallen branch, cursed in French, then English, and picked himself up to look around for his notebook, which he’d dropped as he’d stumbled. 

“If you were any clumsier--” Quentin started to chastise himself when an ebony shadow fell upon him as if out of nowhere and a terrible pain across one temple blurred his vision, then he knew no more for a time as another blow knocked him to the ground and he sprawled, unconscious, in the dewy grass on the riverbank. 


	8. 8

“He’s missing, I tell you!” 

Eliot turned from the window as the postman passed by the chateau without pausing at the mailbox. Margo glanced up from her sketchbook, where she was working on creating a spring fashion line for ladies who wanted more options than dresses or hoop skirts. 

“Get away from that window before the sunlight gives you blisters. Why aren’t you asleep, anyway?”   
Eliot yanked the drapes shut and stalked over to the couch, where he laid down and put one hand over his eyes. 

“Because I can’t. We haven’t gotten a letter from Quentin in almost two weeks, Margo!” 

“That doesn’t mean he’s missing. Maybe he’s found something and simply hasn’t had the time to write.” 

“Something’s wrong,” Eliot said as he sat up again. “Call it intuition or the bond I have with him, but I feel it!” 

“So what do you want to do, El? Travel to Lithuania? Winter is practically knocking at the door!” 

“Are you seriously suggesting we wait until next April or May to find out what’s happened to Q?” 

“No of course not, but I don’t think a delayed letter is enough to let us know something’s wrong!” 

Eliot bit back a response as he took a sip from his flask. He’d refilled it the night before, thanks to a willing donor. Maybe Quentin had found something, but it simply wasn’t like him not to write a letter, especially when they’d received one pretty much every week since Quentin left for Lithuania. The idea that bounty hunters--a fact of life for vampires all over the world--had discovered and murdered his companion made Eliot feel sick in a way that made the magical plague look like the common cold. 

_ I would know it, I think _ , Eliot thought to himself as he paced out of the room and into his den, where he wrote letters and kept most of the papers related to his vineyard business. The day was cold and the papers called for a hard frost that evening, but Eliot still felt the uncomfortable ache of a vampire moving about during the daylight hours. _ I would know if he was dead _ .  _ I made him, after all.  _

This self-talk did little to brighten Eliot’s mood, and he finally retired to the basement, where his bed looked chillier than an open grave. He climbed into it anyway and settled onto his right side. The discomfort faded but sleep and its dreams eluded him. 

_ What if he’s left you?  _

“Don’t be so foolish!” Eliot snapped back at that unbidden thought. “He has no reason to leave you, there’s more to it than that, there must be!” He closed his eyes and folded his arms around himself. It wasn’t Quentin’s embrace, but imagining it brought him sort of a thin comfort that helped him think more clearly. 

_ If I don’t receive a letter in two days’ time, I’m going to Lithuania to search for him.  _

___________________________________________________________________________

Quentin’s consciousness returned to him in a pewter-colored pinpoint of light, which he clung to until it grew larger and larger and he was able to open his eyes. His first thought was one of surprise--as a vampire, he didn’t think he could be knocked unconscious--and his second was that he would teach whoever had struck him a serious lesson about attacking a supernatural creature. Then a rattling sound caught his attention as he moved, and he realized his arms were chained to his sides. He blinked, trying to clear his vision as he took in his surroundings. He was chained to a wall in what appeared to be a basement or storage room, except there wasn’t much in it to look at. Some furniture, covered in thick drop cloths, stood off in one corner and a stack of crates in the other, although what they contained wasn’t clear. Quentin squirmed against the chains and strained to break them. As a newly-minted vampire, his strength was still quite limited and he found that he couldn’t break the thick iron manacles around his wrists. 

“Hello?” He called. The room appeared to be windowless, something for which Quentin was grateful--he had no desire to become trapped in a place where the sun could seep through a window and turn him into a pile of ash. 

“Hello,” a voice replied from the shadows, and Quentin peered in that direction. A figure melted out of the darkness and Quentin blinked when he realized the man facing him didn’t appear to be much older than the average Brakebills student. The young man stared at him, unblinking, with dark, curious eyes. 

“Who are you?” Quentin demanded. “Are you the one who brought me here?” 

The young man with the ginger-brown hair chuckled as he drew closer. 

“Indeed I am,” he nodded, and Quentin frowned as he tried to place the man’s accent. While it seemed to have that unmistakable lilt and rounded edges of a Lithuanian native, it carried something else as well, as if several accents were layered within his speech. “And you are an American, alone in Lithuania. Why?” 

“Is there some sort of law that says Americans can’t travel to Lithuania?” Quentin asked, struggling against the chains, and the other man pulled a three-legged stool from the corner to sit, where he stared at Quentin as if he was a new species of animal in an exotic zoo display. 

“Americans visit London, Paris, perhaps Germany. They do not mark Lithuania as a tourist stop on their maps when they come to Europe. So tell me, boy, why are you here?” 

“I’m not telling you anything until you tell me who you are and why you have me chained up--wherever this is! You have no right to keep me captive!” 

“My name is Josef Konstantin. This is my home. You are here because I do not trust Americans who creep along the riverbanks long after sunset. What is your name?” 

“Quentin!” He fairly spat it. “Now let me  _ go _ !” 

Josef acted as if he hadn’t heard. He only shifted on the stool and folded his hands in his lap. 

“And what were you doing at the river?” 

“What bloody business of it is yours?” Quentin strained against the chains again. “I wasn’t hurting anyone and I certainly didn’t see any ‘No Trespassing” signs!” 

“So unmarked land is yours to plunder,” Josef mused. “You certainly sound like an American. Or a Brit.” 

“I haven’t done anything wrong!” 

“Perhaps not. But I’ll decide that when you tell me what you were doing by the river.” 

“Who are you? Some . . . water feature policeman?” Quentin asked, and a small smile touched Josef’s lips. 

“You’re a sassy boy, aren’t you.” 

“I’m not a boy!” Quentin snapped. “And you have no right to keep me here!” 

“Ah, but I believe I do. You see, you may not be a boy, but I do know what you are.” Josef’s dark eyes flashed with anger. “You’re a magician.” He said the word in a way one might speak about a particularly ugly bug. 

“How do you know that?” Quentin asked, and Josef chuckled. 

“Because I know your kind. What brought you here?” 

Quentin pressed his lips together and Josef stepped forward to cup the other man’s chin roughly, fingers digging into his skin until Quentin made a sound of discomfort. 

“I asked you a question, magician! It’s not wise to try me!” 

Quentin squirmed free of his hold, something that made Josef hesitate. Magician or not, he shouldn’t have had the strength to do so. He cupped Quentin’s chin again, moved closer, and then his dark eyes widened. 

“What--what manner of abomination is this?” He asked. “What kind of creature turns a magician into a vampire?” Josef’s hands fisted into Quentin’s shirt and shook him. The chains that held him gave an almost musical jangle. “Who made you? Tell me!” 

Quentin lunged at him as much as he could manage, striking the other man’s forehead with his own. Josef reeled back, hand to his forehead, and Quentin saw pain and shock in the man’s dark eyes, much to his satisfaction. He recovered and struck Quentin’s face forehand, backhand, several times, fangs bared, eyes flaring silver-blue. After a moment, that fire died out and Josef paused to straighten his clothing. 

“Very well,” he said after a moment. “You’re bound to get hungry sooner or later, whatever you are. Perhaps that will loosen your lips and I’ll find out what you’re truly doing in my land.” 

Fear crept up Quentin’s spine at that. He’d seen what hunger could do to a vampire, and it wasn’t pleasant. 

“You’re a vampire too,” Quentin said. “Would you truly torture one of your own?” 

“You’re not of my kind!” Josef snapped. “You’re . . . you’re some kind of strange mistake! I would no more turn a magician than I would drink from a corpse!” He scoffed. “You’re an insect. A dangerous one, perhaps.” 

“I’m not out to hurt anyone, you paranoid fool!” Quentin said. 

“Then what are you here for?” Josef asked, then nodded when Quentin stared at the wall and refused to reply. “Very well then, my magician friend. You will remain as my guest until I find out your intentions. But I must remind you that you are the intruder here, and I will do whatever is necessary to protect my land and my kind.” He turned and strode away, and a heavy iron door banged shut behind it. Quentin heard several locks turn and he squirmed in the chains, unable to bring his hands together to cast any spells that might help free him. 

_ Eliot _ , he thought to himself.  _ Eliot, please _ . 

__________________________________________________________________________

Despite Margo’s objections, Eliot left their comfortable Paris home the next evening. 

“If I have to stay more than a week, I’ll come back for you,” he’d told her, kissing her cheeks and trying to put out the angry fire in her dark eyes. “I swear it. If I can’t find Q on my own, I’m going to need your help.” 

_ And I very well might _ , Eliot mused as he used a travel portal to reach Lithuania in minutes instead of days.  _ I have this terrible feeling that Q has gotten himself into something he can’t get himself out of.  _

Wind screamed out its freezing fury, driving snow across the fields near the village from where Quentin had sent his last letter. Eliot picked out lights in the brief interludes where the wind fell off and headed in that direction. As he got closer, a wooden sign let him know he’d reached Vilnius. A combination inn and tavern stood to his right as he reached the main road of the village, and he glanced at the carved sign over the door. 

_**The Weaver’s Nest.** _

Eliot pushed open the heavy wooden door and stepped into a tavern hall scattered with round tables and rough-hewn wooden chairs. A bar ran across one side of the room and stairs led to a second floor--the entrance to the inn, he surmised. The smells of exotic food and pipe smoke hung in the air. Few noticed Eliot as he entered, which meant the inn must be a common place to stop for travelers passing through the village. He went to the bar, where a barrel-chested man with thinning dark hair cleaned glasses and filled those of his patrons. 

“Good evening,” Eliot greeted him in Lithuanian. 

“Good evening,” the man replied, but the politeness remained at the surface of his expression. “What can I do for you? Food, ale?” 

“Information, if you please,” Eliot replied and let four gold coins fall to the counter. The barkeep blinked. “Feel free to examine them but I can promise you, they’re real.” 

The man ran a finger over the surface of one of the coins. 

“What do you wish to know?” 

“My friend was staying in Vilnius, but his letters have stopped. I’m here to search for him. He’s an American, his name is Quentin Coldwater.” 

“The young American!” The barkeep nodded. “He was staying here, sir, but he hasn’t returned in several nights.” 

Something thin and cold poked at Eliot’s heart. 

“Did he say if he was moving on?” 

“No sir. He didn’t say much of anything, he rather kept to himself, actually. Went wandering at night quite a bit.” 

“Do you mind if I go up to his room?” Eliot asked, and the innkeeper lifted a meaty shoulder. 

“I can have my wife show you up, it’s much as he left it.” He turned his head toward a door, one Eliot presumed led to the kitchen. ”Maila!" 

A buxom middle-aged woman, her dark braid shot through with thick bands of grey, emerged from the kitchen. 

“Did you hail me?” She asked, and the innkeeper nodded. 

“This man is a friend of the American lad who was staying here, says he’s come to look for him. Can you take him upstairs to the room he rented?” 

The woman’s dark eyes cut to Eliot then back to her husband. 

“Yes, though there’s not much to see.” 

“I told him the same myself.” 

“Still,” Eliot broke in, and the woman set aside a serving tray. 

“Very well, sir. Come with me.” She led Eliot across the room and up the steps, the landing and hallway there covered with handmade carpeting. There were three doors and she opened the first one to the right with a brass key she carried in her apron pocket. “In here, sir.” 

Eliot stepped into the room. While a human might not be able to detect a scent beyond the soap and cologne Quentin used, Eliot’s nostrils flared at the scent underneath those things--the unique aroma of his companion. It filled Eliot’s senses until the room almost felt haunted. Quentin’s leather travel bag was nowhere in sight, and other than a few articles of clothing and a book, its place marked with a playing card, there wasn’t much of anything in the room that indicated he’d settled in at all. 

“He’s a strange one,” The woman said, and Eliot swung around to face her. 

“Excuse me?” 

“Didn’t speak hardly at all, never ordered supper, went out wandering after the sun set.” 

Eliot leashed his temper. 

“He’s an herbalist and some plants and roots only bloom at night. And he has a medical condition that requires a special diet.” He glanced around for Quentin’s notebook, the one he kept his notes in, but he didn’t see it. After looking through the one small dresser in the room and finding nothing but a few more articles of clothing (including, Eliot noticed, one of his own cardigans, a detail that made his throat feel thick) and another book. 

“Sir?” 

“Hmm?” Eliot glanced at the woman. 

“The Dysna . . . it can be treacherous. The riverbank is thick with trees and the roots often push the earth aside, making the footing difficult.” 

“Are you suggesting he fell in?” Eliot asked, and the woman nodded.    


“We often tell visitors not to approach it too closely, especially in the spring, when the melting snows make it spill over the banks. The water levels are lower now, but the currents--” She paused, her face grim.   
“Thank you,” Eliot said and headed for the door, where he paused and handed her a business card. “My name is Eliot Waugh, and my companion is Quentin. I plan to stay in town until I discover his whereabouts and in the meantime, I will take over the rent on his room.” He handed the woman several coins. “I’ll return presently.” 

“You mean to go back out into the night? In this weather?” Maila glanced at the window, where the wind blew hard pellets of snow against the panes. 

“I must find my friend.” 

“Wait, please.” Maila seemed to think something over. “I know someone, a man in our town of some repute. It may be he might have seen your friend. Stay here, and I can arrange for you to see him tomorrow evening or perhaps in the morning at his home up on the hill. He has an ailment and must avoid the sun.” 

That made Eliot prick a set of mental ears forward. 

“Is that right?” He asked in an even tone, and the woman nodded. 

“It’s a strange thing. But Master Konstantin is a good man.” She laid a hand on his arm, her thick fingers chapped from dishwater and many loads of laundry. “Will you stay?” 

Eliot wouldn’t meet her eye--she was too good of a woman to fall under his thrall and end up his meal, but he glanced down at her hand and nodded. 

“I’ll stay,” he said. 


	9. 9

Eliot didn’t sleep, though he did rest on what he had to admit was a comfortable feather bed. He ordered some food to avoid suspicion and cast a spell to turn it to liquid before he disposed of it in the chamber pot under the bed. While flushing toilets were already common in Paris, Eliot guessed the technology had yet to reach Lithuania. 

Once he disposed of the food and took a few nips from his flask to take the edge off his hunger, Eliot laid down on his bed and folded his hands behind his head. Some types of magic were still in their infancy, including spells to locate people. You could cast a spell in Arabic to find missing objects, but spellcrafters had yet to perfect one that could locate missing people. He still believed Quentin was alive (you should pardon the expression) but unable to contact him or that he was being held somewhere against his will. At some point, perhaps an hour before dawn, Eliot slipped into that state common to all vampires, something like sleep but dreamless, that restored his strength. He awoke to a persistent knocking and sat up all at once. A glance out the window revealed a grey kind of daylight, one dominated by more snow. He rose and went to the door, and Maila stood there with a tray of coffee and a thick hunk of bread with butter. 

“Good morning.” She bustled into the room and Eliot figured why not, she and her husband owned the place after all. 

“Good morning,” he replied. “Did you have any luck reaching this Mister . . .?” 

“Konstantin. I sent a boy out early with a note, but with this snow, I don’t know how long it will take him to reach the house.” 

Eliot picked up the coffee cup and made as if to sip from it. 

“Can you tell me about this man?” 

“He’s in real estate. He had a partner once but he was murdered.” Maila crossed herself. “Robbed and murdered on the side of the road, he was.” 

“That’s too bad,” Eliot nodded, 

“He comes to the inn sometimes in the evenings when the weather is agreeable. Sometimes we don’t see him for weeks once the snow arrives.” Maila sighed, straightening the room as she spoke. “It grieves me, that young man living in such a large, empty house.” 

“Mmm,” Eliot nodded, peeling a piece of crust off the bread and pocketing it as the woman’s back was turned. It was kind of a shame, really; the bread was warm and yeasty and smelled delicious. “Might I ask, what makes you think this person might have had some contact with Quentin?” 

“Mr. Konstantin goes for long walks at night. I suppose it soothes his grief some, and he might have seen your friend.” She glanced up from the bed, now freshly made, the pillows plump. It never failed to amaze Eliot how some perfectly common humans seemed to perform their own special brands of magic. “I’ll come for you when the messenger boy returns.” 

“Thank you,” Eliot nodded and offered her a coin, which she refused with a gap-toothed smile. 

“No, it’s not necessary sir. Do come down to the tavern and visit with us, though. It’s not often we receive travelers in the winter.” She left the room with the same industrious bustle as she’d come in with and Eliot watched her go, smiling despite his worry over Quentin. 

____________________________________________________________________________

“Wake up.” 

Quentin flinched hard as cold water dashed across his face. He opened his eyes to see Josef standing there, a dripping bucket in one hand. He squirmed in the chains and Josef stepped forward with a glazed mug in the other hand. He put it to Quentin’s lips and Quentin tried to suck at the rim as he realized it contained warm blood. Josef tipped it for him and the vampire drank eagerly, then frowned up at Josef. 

“Why keep me alive?” He asked, and Josef tossed the bucket into one corner. 

“Because my friends in the village sent me a note. It says that you have a friend who’s come to the village looking for you. I’m going down to meet him.” 

Cold dread filled Quentin’s nerves. Eliot. 

“I swear to the moon and stars, if you harm him--” 

“Oh, I don’t plan to. In fact, it’s his presence that will help me get to the bottom of this--who you really are and what you’re doing here.” Josef smirked and his dark eyes flashed with a moment’s good humor. “Maybe he’ll join you here, if I’ve a mind to detain him.” 

“You have no idea who you’re meddling with!” Quentin snapped, and Josef turned on his heel as he walked toward the door. 

“Perhaps not, my young friend, but I’m going to find out.” 

____________________________________________________________________________

The answering note arrived as Eliot dressed for the day. The driving snow blotted out much of the sun, like a gauzy curtain drawn across a window, allowing him to feel more comfortable than he would moving around during the day. He ran a comb through his hair and pulled on a pair of warm boots and a sweater--at least the tavern’s temperature agreed with him--and ventured downstairs into the tavern. Most of the locals who ate breakfast at the tavern were absent because of the snow and Eliot sat down at one of the round wooden tables. Malia brought him another cup of fragrant coffee and set it in front of him. Eliot sat facing the door; this was Lithuania, after all, not Paris or Brakebills, U.S.A., and this Josef Konstanin might be some sort of vampire hunter. Eliot knew many of them roamed Eastern Europe, in search of trophies and fortunes made with vampire’s fangs and the ashes of their burned hearts.    
_ If this man is a hunter and he’s done anything to harm Quentin, I’m going to tear his head off and use it for a chamber pot _ , Eliot thought to himself, curling his hands around the cup of coffee to keep them from trembling. 

The door blew open a moment later and Eliot straightened his spine as a man entered and pushed the door shut behind him. He wore several layers of wool, heavy boots, a scarf, and hat that obscured many of his features. Eliot watched as he unwrapped the scarf and took off the heavy coat without struggling, with movements that seemed familiar. A question rose in his mind and he dismissed it with a mental shake of his head. That wasn’t possible--was it? 

The stranger pulled off his hat, revealing light brunette hair and eyes nearly the same shade as Quentin’s, like melting dark chocolate. He had features that were almost elfin--a sharp chin, high cheekbones and a fine yet thin nose. Eliot had no trouble picturing him in green shoes with a curled toe and playing some sort of flute. Handsome certainly, but younger than Eliot had imagined from the way the innkeeper’s wife talked about him. The stranger approached Eliot’s table and then paused, the two of them locking eyes. Eliot got to his feet. 

“Are you Josef Konstantin?” He asked, and the young man nodded. 

“I am. Are you the man I’m here to see?” 

“Yes. I’m Eliot Waugh.” The other man’s gaze was like a mirror, reflecting it back in the same steady manner, and Josef offered a hand. Eliot shook it, allowing the other man to size him up. He had a cool, dry grip, and in that moment, when vampires gauge a human’s strength and track their pulse, each knew the other for what he was. 

“Perhaps we should adjourn to a corner table,” Josef said, and Eliot gave a mental frown as he tried to separate the two facets of Josef’s accent. The rounded vowels and the way the Z sound replaced the th of English, yes, that was obvious, but underneath there was something else, as if this man had lived in Lithuania but wasn’t its native son, much in the same way he, Margo and Quentin all had slight Parisian accents but the American construction of their speech was more than obvious to those born and raised in France. 

“After you,” Eliot nodded, and Josef chose a table near the rear fireplace, where the crackle of the fire might help to muffle their voices. They both sat and Josef’s dark eyes reflected the fireplace flames. 

“You’re like him,” Josef said even before they were seated, and Eliot gave him a sharp glance. Josef nodded. “Yes . . . it was I who took your companion.” 

Eliot felt a tremor of fury shudder through him and Josef smiled. 

“Careful, Mr. Waugh. You wouldn’t want my loyal friends to discover that there’s a vampire in their innocent midst!” 

“If I burn, I’ll take you with me! Now, what have you done with Quentin?” Eliot hissed the words out and Josef chuckled. 

“Your young friend is unharmed. Why, I even gave him a meal before I came to see you!” 

“If he’s unharmed, then what do you want of us?” Eliot asked, and Josef leaned forward. 

“I want to know who made you. I want to know what manner of vampire would gift immortality to the murderous ilk that call themselves magicians!” 

“Murderous--magicians aren’t out to harm anyone!” 

“Lie!” Josef all but hissed it, but the softness of his tone made the word no less venomous. “I know what your kind are--using your abilities stolen from the universe to cheat, steal, and murder!” Josef’s eyes flashed. “Like one of you murdered my companion!” 

Eliot managed to tamp back his anger and tilted his head to one side. 

“A magician murdered your companion?” 

“A bounty hunter! One who used his magic to locate my companion and murder him for his heart, his fangs.” Josef’s lips drew back in a sneer. “So tell me again, Mr. Waugh, about how magicians don’t harm anyone!” 

“I might have more sympathy for you, Mr. Konstantin, if you weren’t holding my partner for ransom or whatever’s happening here. Is that what’s happening? What do you want, exactly?” 

“What I want is to know who made him, and you, and why! You have no business being as I am!” 

Eliot raised a brow. 

“You think of me as less of a vampire because of my magic?” 

“I think of you as a fiend because of your magic!’ 

“Ah, I see,” Eliot nodded. “Because a magician took your companion for the bounty, every creature with magical ability must also be ruthless killers.” He leaned forward a bit. “I don’t know who made me. He, or possibly she, one never knows, didn’t show their face. I was--distracted, they attacked, and when I awoke, I was as you see me now. As for Quentin, I made him.” Eliot’s amber eyes met Josef’s dark ones. “I made him because he would have otherwise died and I wouldn’t allow it. If you truly did have a companion you cared for, maybe you understand.” 

Some of the anger left Josef’s expression. 

“He would have died otherwise? Explain.” 

“That’s why Quentin is here in Lithuania. He’s not hunting anything more than information and some native roots that only show themselves at night. There’s a magical plague affecting people in the United States, and he’s trying to find a cure. No more.” Eliot’s voice dropped to a murmur, but this robbed it of none of the threat behind his next words. “Yes, I made him, and therefore, if you don’t release him to me immediately, I will proceed to  _ unmake  _ you. Piece by piece.” 

Josef blinked at this and Eliot nodded. 

“I mean what I say. Quentin had nothing to do with the death of your companion. He even avoids killing people for food when he can. Release him to me, and we’ll leave Lithuania directly after.” 

Josef stared at Eliot for a long moment and then surprised the younger vampire by laughing. 

“My lad, if you’re bluffing, you must be one hell of a card player.” He nodded. “Very well. I’ll release your companion and bring him here at sunset, and then you will both leave Lithuania forever. Do we have an agreement?”

“We do,” Eliot nodded and shook Josef’s hand briefly. “Sunset, then.” 

Josef rose and collected his clothing, bundling himself into it in what Eliot knew was mostly a show for the benefit of the locals. 

_ It’s amazing _ , Eliot thought to himself,  _ that humans so rarely see the magic and monsters that exist right under their noses. But then, humanity is ripe with monsters of all sorts, isn’t it?  _

Once Josef let himself back out into the swirling snow, Maila approached Eliot. 

“Did Mr. Konstanin have any useful information for you?” 

Eliot thought the question over, knowing he could blow Josef’s cover in this quaint little village, which is more than he deserved for kidnapping and holding Quentin against his will. In the end, Eliot’s desire to have this whole thing over and done with won out. 

“I believe so. Mr. Konstantin . . . found my companion in distress and took him to his home to treat him. They’ll be coming back here tonight so my friend and I can return to Paris.” 

___________________________________________________________________________

“I must admit, your sire is a brave bastard.” 

Josef shoved Quentin’s leather travel bag and journal into his arms. Sunset was approaching rapidly and snow fell in a consistent shower to cover the village and its roads. 

“Braver than you!” Quentin shot back. Freed from the chains, he wanted to wring Josef’s head from his shoulders, but there was Eliot to consider and he didn’t want to make any more trouble for his partner--not that he’d ever meant to. Josef only shook his head. 

“Come along, my sassy lad--I want you walking ahead of me until we reach the Weaver’s Nest.” 

“I’m not your lad!” Quentin said through clenched teeth, and Josef gave him a light, almost leisurely shove to get him moving once they left Josef’s home. A light snow obscured the sunset, turning the lowering sun into a harmless salmon-colored orb as the two headed down the road into the village. Quentin threw the older vampire smoldering glances over one shoulder as Josef gave him a nudge or a slap on the back to keep him moving. Quentin doubted the man would care if he complained he was hungry. The thought of seeing Eliot sustained him though, and he trudged through the snow as it swirled around his ankles. The lights of the village began to come on one by one, and Josef followed him closely so he didn’t bolt. While the thought did occur to Quentin, he knew he was much too hungry to make it very far. 

“You--” Josef began to speak when an odd whistle split the cold late-afternoon air and Josef grunted. Quentin turned and his mouth fell open when he saw an arrow, at least 14 inches long, the end glistening with blood and a piece of quivering flesh, protruding from Josef’s chest, nearly at dead center. He stared at Quentin in what looked like a mix of surprise and pain, then fell to his knees and onto his side. A tall man, bearded and dressed in layers of furs and fabrics, came whooping out of the nearby underbrush, a crossbow in one hand. He drew a curved knife from a scabbard on his belt and Quentin’s flesh crawled when he saw the glint of its silver blade. 

_ Hunter!  _ His mind screamed and he reacted purely on instinct, turning on the gibbering man and tackling him off to one side of the trail, using what little vampire strength he had left. The man’s head struck a rotted log with a loud thump and his eyes rolled back in his head. Quentin picked up the crossbow and kicked the knife down into a nearby ravine before turning back to Josef. He laid on his side, eyes staring but aware. Quentin cursed and tugged the hunter’s belt from his breeches, using it to bind his arms behind his back, then fled for the village. 


	10. 10

“Quentin? What the hell!” Eliot jumped to his feet as the door to the Weaver’s Nest slammed open and Quentin staggered in. Eliot went to him and Quentin all but fell into his arms, reveling in his scent and the safety of his embrace. The innkeeper and his wife watched from behind the bar, trading surprised and confused glances. 

“Josef--” Quentin began, and Eliot’s scowl was enough to send two small children playing near the fireplace scrambling for the safety of their parents’ table, where they sat eating bread and stew. 

“That bastard! Did he hurt you?” He asked, holding Quentin at arm’s length and looking him up and down. He touched the crossbow jammed into Quentin’s belt. “What the hell is--” 

“Come with me, El. Please, right now,” Quentin murmured, cutting a glance at the curious owners of the Weaver’s Nest. “I’ll explain, but not here, I can’t.” 

“All right, love,” Eliot nodded. Quentin’s dark eyes held alarm but no real panic, and they went out the front door together. Snow fell, but there was no strong wind to drive it this evening, and Eliot caught Quentin’s hand as he sprinted ahead. “Quentin, wait! You look so peaked, when was the last time you ate?” 

“Yesterday, but . . .” Quentin shook his head and stumbled a bit as he led Eliot back up the road toward Josef’s home, the way he and the other vampire had come. Eliot followed, his boots kicking up small puffs of fresh snow, until they came to the spot where Josef lay sprawled in the middle of the road. 

“What the hell happened here?” Eliot asked. “Did you attack . . .” his words trailed off as he saw the glint of the arrow tip protruding from Josef’s chest. 

“It was a hunter,” Quentin said, leading Eliot over to where he’d bound the unconscious man, only to find he’d escaped. The belt Quentin had used to tie his hands laid in the snow, still buckled. “Oh hell!” He looked over at Josef. “He must have fled because he didn’t have any weapons. He had a knife with a silver blade but I kicked down that ravine there.” Quentin nodded to it . “But the arrow, it must be tipped with silver--” His words trembled and then he fell at Eliot’s feet, faint with hunger and exhaustion. Eliot cursed and lifted his partner over one shoulder and then, as if in annoyed afterthought, cast a travel portal, lifted Josef up over the other shoulder, and stepped through. The wavering oblong opening glowed bright for a moment and then snapped shut behind him. 

___________________________________________________________________________

Paris   
A few moments later 

“You want to explain to me what the hell this is?” 

“Not really,” Eliot replied as he carried both Quentin and Eliot to their chateau’s basement and set Quentin down in the large, chilled bed they usually shared, then laid Josef out onto the floor, the arrow still embedded in his chest. 

“Excuse me?” Margo followed him down the steps. “You’ve been gone for weeks, El!” 

“I know, and I’m sorry. There were complications--” 

“I see that,” Margo drawled as she stared at the bleeding man on the floor. “And this is?” 

“He’s a vampire from Lithuania. He kidnapped Quentin.” Eliot knelt and tore open Josef’s shirt, revealing the arrow tip. “Margo, be a love and get Quentin some blood? There’s some in the icebox.” He nodded to the storage box in the corner. Knowing her friend would probably remain reticent until Quentin was conscious and talking again, she went to the icebox and withdrew a cup of stored blood, murmuring a warming spell until it was body-temperature. She took it to Quentin, sitting down and touching his cheek. 

“Q . . . hey, come on, rise and shine . . .” she held the cup under his nose and his eyelids fluttered open. She smiled. “That’s it, c’mon . . .” she allowed him to take the cup as he sat up and sipped at it, then took a longer pull. After a few moments he drained it and then blinked at her. 

“Margo! You’re here!” 

“No, more like you’re here. Back in Paris, along with your guest.” She nodded to Josef and Quentin swung out of the bed. 

“Is he--” 

“Not yet. But if we don’t get this arrow out of him, he will be.” 

“You say he kidnapped Quentin? Then why help the bastard at all?” Margo asked, and Eliot sighed. 

“Believe me, I’ve already asked myself that. I suppose because we’re of a kind and his reasons . . . Q, hold the shaft of the arrow here, good, thanks . . .” Eliot focused on the silver tip and it flared an ice blue before freezing solid. Eliot snapped it off and tossed it aside. “Sit him up? Yes, that’s it . . .” Eliot moved around the supine vampire and snapped the feathered end of the arrow off as well, then slid the shaft from Josef’s body. A brief gout of blood followed and Margo’s nose wrinkled. 

“God,” she muttered, and Eliot pressed a thick towel to the wound. 

“With the arrow and the silver gone, he should heal, but he’s going to need blood. Fresh.” 

“I can call one of our donors,” Quentin said, and Eliot shook his head. 

“I want you to rest, Q. You’ve been through a hell of a lot lately.” 

“I’m fine El, really.” He looked Josef over. “What do you think he’ll do when he comes to?” 

“I don’t know,” Eliot sighed. “But I think maybe we’d better secure him just to be safe.” 

____________________________________________________________________________

Later, after leaving Josef to rest in a locked guest room, Eliot took Quentin to their bed, where they made love almost as if discovering each other all over again. Afterward, as Quentin laid in Eliot’s arms, smiling and riding the sweet after-effects, Eliot stroked his hair and kissed his cheek. 

“I thought I’d lost you. When you disappeared, it felt like my world narrowed down to thoughts of what might have become of you. I know that vampire hunters are more common in Eastern Europe and I wondered if maybe--” Eliot shut his eyes and held Quentin close, burying his nose in the clean scent of Quentin’s hair. “I can barely think on it.” 

“Then don’t,” Quentin looked up at him and touched his face. “I’m home, El, it’s all right.” He settled his head on Eliot’s bare chest, listening to the hum of the connection Eliot had created between them. It wasn’t a heartbeat but it was something just as substantial, something filled with so much meaning that Quentin could barely grasp it. The connection was bigger than them both as individuals but tied them together in a way that made the word “eternity” feel like heaven to Quentin. 

“I suppose the question now is what’s to be done with our guest,” Eliot said as he stroked Quentin’s tawny hair. “He’s probably not going to be happy to realize we’ve brought him to Paris.” 

“He’s lucky he’s still got a head on his shoulders!” Quentin said. “If I hadn’t stopped that hunter--” 

“Why did you, anyway?” Eliot asked, and Quentin closed his eyes a moment. 

“I suppose I did it partly out of instinct when I saw the silver blade and partly because--well, I don’t think any of us deserve to be hunted. Most of us aren’t a serious threat to humanity, at least from what I’ve seen of our kind. None of us want to take over the world, I don’t believe we’re inherently evil and most of us just want to be left alone, to survive.” 

“He told me a bounty hunter killed his companion. A bounty hunter that was also a magician. That’s why he held you. He thought you were out to kill maybe him or other vampires in the region. The damned fool . . . it never occurred to him that you went to Lithuania for other reasons.” 

“He did?” Quentin asked, and Eliot nodded. 

“Most people in the village put it down to a robbery but . . .” Eliot shook his head. “He was beheaded and Josef said they’d taken his fangs and heart.” 

Quentin winced. 

“And they still put it down to a common robbery?” 

“I don’t know if Josef even reported the crime or if that tiny village even has a constable. I think, under the circumstances, that Josef handled most everything himself. After all, he probably didn’t want any of the villagers to make connections.” 

“Or maybe they know,” Quentin said, making Eliot raise his head. 

“Quentin, how could that be? People in that area are so superstitious--” 

“Exactly. So maybe they’re protecting Josef. Those two who owned the inn . . . they’re nice enough people but I don’t think any human would be that willfully ignorant of someone like Josef.” 

“Hmmmh.” Eliot tucked that idea away for later and then sat up a little as he heard Josef’s voice calling his name, and angrily at that. Quentin sat up as well. 

“He’s awake?” 

“Certainly sounds that way. Come on, love, let’s go see how Mr. Konstantin is faring.” Eliot tossed on a robe and Quentin did the same before heading upstairs and to one of the guest rooms. Eliot fished a key from the pocket of his robe and unlocked the door. Josef scowled as he stood only inches from the threshold, his complexion pallid. 

“How dare you imprison me!” He snapped, and Eliot suppressed the urge to chuckle as he shooed Josef back into the room with his telekinesis, force-pushing him over to the bed. Josef bared his fangs and Eliot made him sit. 

“How dare I? After what you did to Quentin?” 

“I never harmed him!” Josef snapped, and Eliot nodded. 

“And you’re not being harmed now. In fact, you can thank Quentin for the fact that you’re not laying headless on the road between your home in Lithuania and the Weaver’s Nest! Do you remember being attacked?” 

Josef glanced down at the healing wound on his chest. 

“Fortunately, they missed the heart.” 

“Fortunately, Quentin tackled the man who shot you. Both the arrow and the knife the man carried were silver.” 

“It was a hunter,” Quentin nodded. “I’m almost sure of it.” 

Josef’s gaze narrowed. 

“And if you’re almost sure of it, why bother stopping him from murdering the man who’d been keeping you prisoner?” 

“Popular question,” Quentin said to Eliot, who grinned and nodded. 

“I fail to see what’s funny.” Josef retorted, and Quentin tucked a stray lock of hair behind one ear. 

“What’s funny is that Eliot asked me the very same question, and so did our friend who lives with us. Why did I bother tackling down the hunter when I could have simply let him behead you and go on my merry way?” 

“So why didn’t you?” Josef asked. 

“Mr. Konstantin.” Quentin dragged a chair over and sat down on it backwards to regard the older vampire with his dark eyes. “Do you know how many vampires there are in the world?” 

“No. I understand there is a large contingent in Eastern Europe and some in isolated regions of lesser-known continents.” 

“Ever since I became a vampire, I’ve done all I can to find others of their kind. I wanted to know about the one who made Eliot, and who made that one, and so forth. I . . . something of a census, I suppose. But the more I looked, the more I came to understand that there aren’t many of us out there at all. I didn’t want to be responsible for the destruction of one like me, and that’s exactly what it would have been. Leaving you to the hands of that hunter would be almost the same as me destroying you with my own hands.” 

Josef stared at the young hybrid. 

“You’re serious.”

“My heart may not beat but I still have one,” Quentin said. “Mr. Konstantin, Eliot told me about your companion . . . what happened to him.” 

Josef scowled at the taller vampire. 

“Aren’t we the town crier!” He said in an accusing tone. 

“It wouldn’t be much trouble to put that arrow back where I found it. Or to put it somewhere else!” Eliot shot back. Quentin, always the mediator, (His middle name was Makepeace, after all,) held up a hand. 

“Hang on a moment, El,” he said, and materialized a cup of chilled blood in his right hand, which he warmed with a murmured spell before taking it to Josef. The older vampire ignored the cup for a few moments to peer up at Quentin instead. 

“What do you want from me?” He asked, and Quentin shook his head. 

“It’s what you wanted from me first, Mr. Konstantin! All I want now is for you to tell me what happened to your companion, and who you believe did it.” He offered the cup again and this time Josef took it, then drained it. 

“Do you truly think it matters?” He asked, and Quentin nodded. 

“I do.” 

“Why?” 

“Because I think the vampire hunters and the plague that’s been killing magicians are tied together.”


	11. 11

Eliot and Josef stared at Quentin, each of them forgetting their quarrels for the moment. 

“You’re serious,” Eliot said after a moment and Quentin nodded. 

“Before I took an unscheduled visit to Josef’s home, I found evidence that hunters are expanding their reach and making a grab for power.” 

“Pah,” Josef snorted, but it sounded weary. “First of all, lad, some vampire hunters are magicians and secondly, what would the hunters have to gain from wiping out their own kind?” 

“I don’t think they want to wipe out their own kind.” Quentin glanced at Eliot. “But I do think they’re the ones who helped create the plague.” 

Eliot’s expression turned puzzled and thoughtful. 

“But if some magicians are bounty hunters, as Josef claims--” 

“It’s not a claim!” Josef snapped, and Quentin nodded to him. 

“I believe you. But I don’t think it’s all hunters, I think it’s a group of them that want more power and don’t want magicals becoming bounty hunters. I think it’s like, uhm . . .” Quentin gestured. “It’s like their presence makes the job harder for those who don’t have magic.” 

Josef’s expression had lost much of its anger and it was now sharp and alert. For the first time since Eliot met this rather paranoid and impulsive man, it occurred to him that Josef was handsome. 

“Perhaps you’re right . . . it could be that not all those who hunt us are magicians, but if what you believe is true, then do you think that those who are magicians are aware of what’s happening? Why would they willingly allow so many of their own kind to become drooling fools?” 

“I haven’t quite figured that out yet, Mr. Konstantin.” 

Amusement softened Josef’s eyes for a moment. 

“I’ve never met anyone so unceasingly polite. I knocked you unconscious, chained you up in my basement, and you still address me as if I’m some friend of your parents.” He gave a brief chuckle. “You might as well call me Josef, the both of you.” He put a hand on his chest and grimaced. “And I suppose I owe you both my thanks for not leaving me to that bounty hunter.” 

“I can’t say I know you would have done the same for us,” Eliot replied, “but you should really thank Quentin. He’s the one who disarmed the hunter then came to me for help.” 

“There’s enough people out there trying to kill us right now without us killing each other,” Quentin said, and Eliot put an arm around him, pleased at his words. Josef noted how they touched each other and a surge of sorrow made a thick knot in his belly. He hated the way the grief came back to him again and again--just when he thought he’d buried it, some word or smell or other reminder acted like a mental shovel, turning the dirt of the buried sorrow and exposing it anew. It uncovered all the details about Matis that he both hated and cherished--hated them because the sorrow made him feel weak--but oh, Matis, his love, the man who’d saved him from starvation, both physical and emotional, he would never return and the bond that Eliot and Quentin shared only seemed to intensify that awareness. 

“So what do we do now?” He asked, using that mental shovel to rebury the image of Matis’ headless body, the heart removed. 

“Well . . . go back to Lithuania for one thing,” Quentin said. “That’s where I found some of this information but I’ll have to verify it before we act further. If the bounty hunters want magicians out of the picture, we have to discover the ringleader, for lack of a better word. But for now, I think we should rest and recover here for a few days, at least.” Quentin glanced up at Eliot and Eliot could read the request in his lover’s eyes. He sighed. 

_ Oh Q,  _ he thought to himself. _ Can’t you just be a soulless creature of the night like the rest of us?  _

But, like drinking the Seine dry with a straw, asking Quentin to be deliberately cruel was an impossibility. Vampire he may be, but he’d retained that same sweetness he had that first day he’d come to the brownstone in Manhattan, willing to help someone--not just someone, but a vampire--a vampire and a stranger. Eliot closed his eyes a moment and then squeezed Quentin with one arm. 

“Josef, will you stay with us?” He asked, and the other man’s chin jerked up, his eyes widening, before he tilted his head in consideration. After a moment, he nodded. 

“For another cup of that warm blood if nothing else,” he nodded. 

___________________________________________________________________________

While Margo certainly had no fear over another vampire sharing their home, the presence of their guest vexed her. She certainly didn’t trust him and liked him even less. Josef found it both surprising and a little maddening that he couldn’t seem to beguile the woman; perhaps she had some residual ability of her own from living with vampires. Still, Eliot and Quentin shared their donors with him, which helped his wounds heal, and Eliot loaned him a coffin he’d used before he and Quentin had built their bed. 

Josef knew he owed Quentin the story of how Matis had died, and as he lay resting in the comfort of the roomy, silk-lined coffin, (purple satin, how this Eliot fellow loved to add a flair to everything he owned,) Josef turned those terrible events over in his head, cursing the sharpness of his vampire memories. 

Matis had been one of the first vampires of the older order to understand that their kind need not kill humans to survive and that living right under their noses could even be profitable. In fact, Matis was largely responsible for transforming Vilnius from a tiny scatter of cottages and one pub to a proper village. Of course, much of that work was to his advantage, as it made him a wealthy man, but it also made him a popular man. Even due to his simple beginnings in Ireland, where he hadn’t been able to read or write, Josef understood the advantages. 

Of course, none of that mattered now, because Matis’ fraternization with humans had, in some ways, been a part of his undoing and murder. 

Matis was on the road that night because he’d been overseeing the construction and sale of a cottage a few doors down from the Weaver’s Nest, where he would sometimes spend the night if the weather turned. That evening had been a fine one, though, with a pallid rind of moon and plenty of bright starlight. Josef wondered if Matis might still be alive if he’d chosen to stay at the inn that night or had traveled by horseback or even a carriage, something that would have carried him out of harm’s way more quickly. Instead, he’d walked, taking the road he and Josef used nearly every night. 

Except that night, someone had laid in wait. 

Josef shifted on the plush purple satin, the memories coming faster and with an agonizing focus. He’d awoken that evening to find Matis hadn’t returned home and set out with their sighthound, a graceful grey ghost of a dog named Sacha, to search for him. The two of them had set off along the road, and then Sacha had bolted ahead. The dog rarely vocalized--like his masters, Sacha hunted in silence--but then he raised such a long, sustained howl that it turned Josef’s spine into a stiff column of ice. He’d followed that terrible sound until he rounded a bend in the path and found the sighthound sitting next to Matis’ headless body, pointed nose in the air as he howled in a way that was so mournful that Josef joined him for a moment, a low, twisted sound coming from his throat. The moon was little more than a crescent smile in the night sky but the starlight, oh, the starlight showed him the terrible details, and in his memories, that sound morphed into screams because his lover’s chest was a chasm of red gristle, the heart absent, the neck a leaking stump because the head had been removed, Christ, his head was gone  _ gone GONE-- _

A thump woke Josef from memories that had, at one point, morphed into nightmares. He sat up all at once, eyes flaring blue-silver, fangs bared, ready to take on the attacker who had so cruelly slain his companion. Then he recognized the dark eyes and bookish features of Quentin Coldwater, one hand still on the coffin lid he’d opened, the other on Josef’s shoulder, shaking him. 

“Josef? Josef, wake up!” 

Josef struggled to get a fix on his surroundings, the road from the dream dissolving (and taking Sacha with it--the dog had settled itself on Matis’ grave and died there, of grief) and reality settling in. Quentin watched him, his expression fraught with concern. 

“Josef? Are you all right?” He asked, and Josef took refuge in anger. 

“Yes, yes I’m fine! Don’t hover over me so!” He shooed Quentin away, and the younger vampire stepped back as Josef pushed the coffin lid back the rest of the way. His hands trembled and he folded them together. “What time is it?” He asked, buying himself a bit with the question. 

“Just a few moments before dawn. You were screaming.” 

“Do you believe vampires are incapable of dreaming?” Josef asked, and Quentin shook his head. 

“No . . . at least I know I still do. I’ve never thought to ask Eliot about it.” He sat in a plush gold satin wing chair nearby, resting his head on one of the wings as he regarded Josef, that concern still lingering in a way that made Josef want to order him from the room. But of course he couldn’t--this wasn’t his land or his home. Hell, the coffin he slept in wasn’t even his. 

“It’s strange,” Quentin continued. “As a vampire, the details of what I dream about are much more vivid than they used to be when I was a human. And they stay with me long after I awaken. If that’s what we really do--sleep, I mean.” His dark eyes lifted to Josef’s face. “Is it like that for you?” 

“Yes,” Josef replied as he sat up and smoothed down his hair with both hands. 

“Were you dreaming about your companion? The one you lost?” 

“The one I lost,” Josef repeated, his tone flat and weary. “You lose the key to the upstairs closet, your watch, that foreign coin you always keep with you for good luck. I didn’t lose Matis--he was taken from me.” 

“I guess you think I can’t relate,” Quentin said. “My partner turned me into a vampire to keep me at his side.” 

“Magician hybrids making other hybrids,” Josef frowned. “I can’t say I condone it.” 

“Isn’t that a little elitist?” Quentin asked, and Josef nodded. 

“Indeed it is. But you’ll have to forgive me, I’ve been a vampire for nearly a century now and my views are . . . conservative.” While Josef didn’t smile, there was an edge of humor to the word and Quentin found himself almost forgiving the man for what he’d done in Lithuania. 

“You know, Mr.--Josef, for what it’s worth, if anything, I’m sorry for what happened to your companion. No being deserves that manner of death.” 

“Mmmh,” the vampire replied, but he gave a nod of acknowledgment as well. Quentin leaned forward in the wing chair. 

“Can I ask you a question?” 

“I’m in your home in a borrowed coffin, lad. I don’t believe I have much in the way of an upper hand here.” 

Quentin nodded. 

“We didn’t mind loaning the coffin, it’s all right. But Josef, how do you know that the bounty hunter who killed your companion was a magician?” 

“Eliot Waugh hasn’t offered you much in the way of being a mentor, has he?” 

“What are you talking about?” 

“All right; he is rather young, I suppose. Listen closely, Quentin, because as you go on--I say this because we don’t age--your abilities grow. They don’t bloom and die like a cut flower but grow stronger like a redwood tree. I could smell the magic on my--on Matis. It was like the stink of a skunk, something dark, perhaps even something that might normally be forbidden among other magicians.” 

“The man who attacked you on the road . . . do you think he was the same man who killed your partner?” 

“I was too busy catching the business end of a silver-tipped arrow, lad,” Josef said with that same unsmiling yet pithy humor. “But somehow I doubt it. The magic I sensed on Matis . . . it was like nothing I’d ever encountered and with my village being so small, I would’ve surely encountered such a man again if he lived there or in one of the neighboring villages.” 

Quentin studied his hands a moment. 

“I have another question.” 

“Ask it.” 

“Where did you . . . uhm . . . does your companion have a resting place?” He asked, and Josef’s eyes narrowed as he stepped from the coffin. 

“Yes,” he replied. “And I know what you’re thinking, but nothing is so important that I would disturb him!” 

“What if we could find his killer, Josef? And stop the magicians plague, which I still think is somehow connected to all this? Wouldn’t Matis--” 

One moment Quentin sat in the wing chair and the next he found himself on the far side of the room, pinned against the wall with Josef’s fine-boned yet powerful hands. 

“Don’t speak his name as if you knew him, boy! I know I owe you a boon for what you did on that road in Vilnius, but I advise that you do not take liberty with my dead lover’s name!” He set Quentin down on his feet, but his nostrils flared. 

Quentin made no move to retaliate. He’d rather expected this reaction, maybe even deserved it, but it was a gambit he’d had to make if he was going to make the connection between the bounty hunters of Eastern Europe and the plague that was still ravaging Brakebills U.S. 

“I apologize,” he said after a moment. “I only meant that if there was a chance, his death wouldn’t be so empty.” Quentin reconsidered the question. “If circumstances were switched, Josef, would you want to help your companion find your killer?” 

Much of the anger left Josef’s expression, swept away by surprise. He studied Quentin for a long moment, then uttered a word in a language Quentin didn’t recognize. 

“So you’re a sassy lad  _ and  _ a clever lad,” he said after a moment. “Maybe I can see why your Eliot took you from the jaws of whatever that plague is.” He drummed his fingers against his right thigh. “If I allow you to do what I believe you’re suggesting, do you think it will tell you anything about Matis’ killer?” 

“I want to guarantee it . . . I wish I could. But I can promise you this--if we do nothing, then it’s likely you’ll never discover the killer’s identity.” 

Josef looked away, the room’s shadows playing along his high cheekbones and elvish chin, before he nodded and looked back up at Quentin. 

“When we return to Lithuania, I’ll take you to where Matis lies.” 


	12. Chapter 12

After five days of rest and recuperation, Josef announced he felt like himself again and that it was time to return to Lithuania. Eliot broke the news to Margo, but this time, she insisted on packing up and coming along. 

“I’m tired of sitting here for weeks and wondering if you two blundering, fanged idiots are stuffed and mounted somewhere,” she’d said, to which Eliot responded he did the mounting when the occasion called for it. Margo had slugged him in the chest with her small fist before wrapping her arms around him in a fierce hug. It was how most of their conversations went, and Eliot never expected any less of her. 

As for Josef, he wasn’t pleased about another magician coming along, but Quentin managed to soothe his ire by pointing out she could assist them with cooperative spells, something that was difficult to manage with only two casters. Eliot couldn’t help but notice the effect Quentin had on the older vampire, this odd ability to get him to cooperate, and Eliot remarked on it as they packed. 

“You and Josef seem to have formed something of an accord,” he said as he took several shirts from the closet he and Quentin shared. Thanks to Eliot’s magic, the interior space was roughly the size of the men’s department in Macy’s back in Manhattan. 

“Oh. Well . . .” Quentin hedged as he slipped a variety of fountain pens into a leather case that folded and locked with a silver clasp. “I don’t think he’s such a bad fellow, really.” 

“He kidnapped you, Q!” 

“Well yes, there’s that, but he thought I might have been involved with his companion’s murder, since he’s certain the bounty hunter who killed Matis was a magician.” 

“And that’s our first order of business in Lithuania?” Eliot asked.   
“I managed to convince him that we need to see his companion’s body to know for sure. But El . . . if you were Josef and someone murdered and beheaded me on the roadside--” 

“Hush your tongue!” Eliot frowned. 

“But if it were,” Quentin continued, determined, “wouldn’t you be mistrustful of any stranger who suddenly showed up in your territory, and from the other side of the world?” He opened a suitcase and began to fill it with clothing and books. 

“I suppose I would,” Eliot nodded. “But you seem to have gotten through to him about all this.” 

“”All he really wants is to find out who murdered his companion and perhaps get some justice. I can understand that.” He turned to Eliot and embraced him. “I know I’d be lonely and bitter without you.” 

Eliot kissed the top of his head. 

“And I without you, my dearest Q.” He turned to snap his suitcases shut. “Let’s not keep the others waiting, shall we?” 

____________________________________________________________________________

The group arrived back in Lithuania just after sunset, near the apex of the winding road that led to Josef’s home. His reticent yet faithful servant, Phineas, was at the door to meet them, as if by some pre-arranged signal. 

“I’m pleased to see you back, sir,” the old man said as he took luggage under both arms as if it weighed nothing. Josef nodded and gave the man’s shoulder a brief squeeze. 

“I’m glad to be back, Phineas. These are my guests . . . Quentin, Eliot, and Margo.” He cleared his throat as he and Quentin glanced at each other--Phineas hadn’t been privy to Quentin’s brief stay at the house. 

“Your servant,” Phineas bowed and trundled off with the luggage. Josef followed, crooking a finger at his guests. 

“This place is old but I think you’ll find your rooms comfortable.” 

“We can always stay at the inn,” Eliot suggested, and Josef gave a terse shake of his head. 

“I can’t trust the Weaver’s Nest right now. The owner and his wife are good people but they’re also simple people who don’t have much interest in what goes on beyond their front door.” Josef led them into a bedroom draped in dark blues edged with black accents. Phineas had stacked the luggage and was bustling around in an adjacent room, the two connected by a pair of tall wooden doors. The tops of both doors met at the frame’s peak in a trapezoid shape. 

“You can take that room, Miss Hanson,” Josef said, and Margo frowned at him as she strode to the doors and looked in. The decor matched the room she stood in, only the duvet and curtains brooded a dark ruby color. 

“I’m not Miss anything,” Margo replied as she looked over the room. “It’s just Margo.” She stepped into the room and ran a hand along the duvet. “This is real silk.” 

“When you live as long as I have, you truly learn to appreciate nice things,” Josef nodded. “And don’t worry about food, I keep a full pantry for looks and for Phineas. He can also make you whatever you like. I’ve been told his kibinai is especially good.” Josef wandered between the two rooms. “As for blood meals, I’m afraid I don’t store it like you do in America.” 

“I brought a supply for us,” Eliot answered. “And I suppose we could always hunt if need be.” 

“All right then,” Josef nodded and clasped his hands behind his back. “Then I suppose it’s time to show you what you came here to see. Follow me.” Josef left Phineas to finish tidying the rooms and led his guests down that wide hallway, down a set of stone steps, through a towering alcove, and down into the basement of the house. The dirt floor smelled like old dried tea leaves and something elemental, unnameable. In one corner, a simple rectangle of stones marked out Matis’ final resting place. Quentin took a step toward it, his nostrils flaring at the smell of ancient Lithuanian soil. 

“No marker?” He asked, his tone free of judgment, and Josef lifted a shoulder. 

“I don’t need a marker to know where he lies, lad. I put him there myself, after all.” 

“How far down?” 

“Six, perhaps seven feet. We had a sighthound at one time that guarded the spot but he passed and I never saw a reason to replace him.” 

“I know a spell that can move the--the remains through matter, so we don’t have to disturb the spot,” Eliot said. Josef looked away a moment. 

“I don’t know if we should do this. The idea of disturbing him . . .” Josef stepped back from the spot. “Perhaps I should leave you to it.” 

“I can’t say there’s no such thing as ghosts,” Quentin said in a quiet tone. “Because of what I am and because of what I’ve seen at Brakebills. But I don’t think your companion has any reason to haunt you, Josef.” 

“All the same, I believe I’ll wait by the alcove.” He strode away and Eliot stepped forward. 

“Q, do you want to loan me some of your energy for this? I think the ground might be frozen under the surface and I don’t want to damage what’s left.” 

“Sure,” Quentin nodded and the two joined hands. Eliot murmured the spell, chanting the activation phrase repeatedly as Quentin joined him. The ground began to glow a citrine shade and the dirt shivered as if caught in a sudden breeze. As the magicians continued the chant, a scatter of bones rose from the ochre-colored dirt, some sections wrapped in mummified, wrinkled skin. The skull rose a few moments after the body revealed itself, clearly detached from the rest of the remains. The jaw gaped open, detached on one side, the upper jaw destroyed as if by some prying tool. Quentin stared at the space where the dead vampire’s fangs should have been and shuddered. The spell ended and the three made a semicircle around the corpse. 

“His name was Matis,” Quentin said. “Whoever murdered him took his heart and fangs, either for trophies or to prove the bounty.” He pointed to the right side of the chest, where several of the ribs had visible cracks. One was snapped and turned back, still clinging to the rib cage by a shriveled section of slivered bone, the marrow showing through like old ivory. Quentin crouched down and his nostrils flared. A dank odor, like rotten vegetables sprouting black mold, assaulted him and he staggered back, nearly falling over. Eliot went to him. 

“Q! What is it? What’s wrong?” 

“Josef is right,” Quentin managed to say as his eyes watered and the corners of his mouth turned down at that awful, bitter odor. “There’s magic here but it’s not like ours at all. It’s not like anything--” He took Eliot and Margo’s hands in his own and tugged them closer to the corpse. 

“Christ on a flaming chariot!” Margo gasped as she took a breath and then turned her head away, her complexion going the color of fresh cottage cheese. She grimaced, her lips pressing together as she fought the urge to vomit. “That’s not decay. That’s--” 

“It’s the old magic. The stuff that came even before the new gods did--the magic our professors told us was forbidden for humans to learn and use,” Eliot said. 

“Then is it possible a human even did this?” Margo asked, pulling a lavender-scented handkerchief from her blouse and pressing it to her nose. “That old magic would’ve torn them apart!” 

“No,” Quentin said, forcing himself to crouch back down by the skeleton. “It’s not possible.” 

“Then what the hell are we dealing with?” Eliot asked, and Quentin looked up at him. 

“Something that appears human but isn’t.” His gaze fell to that sliver of bone, the marrow exposed through bone twisted into a near helix. Eliot took a step back, his amber eyes widening. Quentin nodded. “Something very much like us.” 

____________________________________________________________________________

After replacing the skeleton and ensuring the rectangle of stones hadn’t been displaced, Eliot, Quentin, and Margo lingered near the spot. Quentin glanced toward the far door of the chamber, where he knew Josef waited for them by the alcove. 

“We have to tell him something,” he said after a moment. 

“Sure we do,” Margo nodded. “But what? Do we tell him that he was half right, that it was some sort of magician, but one that somehow commands energies that would burn us into cinders if we even tried to use them? That sure, it’s magic, but it’s so twisted that it smells like the devil’s toilet?” 

“I think we created more questions than we answered by doing this,” Eliot sighed as he ran a hand through his dark curls. “But we can’t stop here. If someone is using this magic to kill vampires, then--” He shook his head. “I thought you and I might be somewhat safe, Q, but this changes the playing field. I think the safest thing is for us to go home.” 

“Home? El, we can’t just drop this and go back to Paris like nothing happened! What about Josef?” 

“He’s taken care of himself this long.” 

“Maybe he has! But if whatever killed Matis knows Josef is a vampire too, it will come back for him eventually!” 

“Q . . . I don’t think we can justify risking our necks over this. You saw the state of that skeleton,” Margo said. Quentin scowled. 

“Then you and Eliot go back to Paris and I’ll figure this out on my own!” 

“Like hell,” Eliot countered, and Quentin swung around to face him. 

“El, don’t you see? This just got bigger than one murdered vampire! Whatever this being is, it could wipe out our kind completely and get rich doing it! Are we just going to return to Paris and go about eternity knowing that? Knowing that it will hunt us down too, eventually? If we let that happen, the magical plague will just keep growing because you and I will be much too dead to find a cure!” 

Eliot put two fingers to his forehead, as if despite being a vampire, he was getting one whopper of a headache. 

“All right,” he said at last. “So it’s a crusade, and you want to set yourself down right in the middle of it. But if this is some kind of horribly old and dangerous magic, where do we find the source? I doubt there’s anything about this in the library back at Brakebills.” 

“Not at Brakebills U.S., no.” Quentin looked up at his companion, excitement making his dark eyes gleam. Margo knew that gleam all too well--it was the one that appeared on her friend’s face when research, books or libraries were in his near future. Even as a vampire, the idea of these made his face light up. “But Brakebills Oxford has the oldest library in the magical community! We might be able to find answers there.” 

“I guess it’s a logical place to start,” Eliot nodded. Quentin put a hand on his arm. 

“I’ll go. I want you and Margo to stay here, ward Josef’s home for him. If whoever attacked him is still lurking around, a solid ward will keep him out.” 

“Q . . .I don’t know if I like the idea of you traveling alone,” Eliot said. Quentin rose up on his tiptoes to kiss his lips. 

“I know. But of the three of us, I’m the strongest researcher and reader.” 

“Rude!” Eliot scoffed, but his tone held a smile. 

“You think everything is rude, and you also know I’m right. Please, do this for me?” 

Eliot drew Quentin into a hug and stroked a hand over his hair. 

“And when have I ever been able to deny you anything, my dear?” 

Quentin chuckled against his chest. 

“Never.” 

“That’s right, never.” He stepped back and touched Quentin’s chin with a gentle finger. “And I won’t now. Just promise me you’ll be careful.” 

“And hurry back,” Margo added, then cocked a thumb at Eliot. “This one is always inconsolable when you’re not around.” 

Eliot opened his mouth to protest, then caught Quentin smiling in an expectant manner. He pressed his lips together and Margo put her arms around them both. 

“Come on . . . it’s got to be cocktail hour around here somewhere.”


	13. 13

The following evening, Quentin left for Oxford with a supply of blood, some books and his trusty journal packed away in his leather travel bag. He traveled by portal, which Eliot knew would make time pass differently for them each, as it often happened with magical travel. He promised to keep in contact as best he could and to return just as quickly. 

After he left, Margo retired to her room to sleep. Eliot wanted to press her about turning, thinking maybe she’d relent with Quentin gone, but the idea made him feel ghoulish so he left it alone. Instead, he wandered the large home, looking into this room and that. At one point he climbed a flight of stone steps that curled around three floors like a helix and then led to a set of slim French doors. Curious, he placed a hand on one and felt the chill of the winter outside. A balcony, then. He turned, trailed his way back down, and turned right into a long corridor, the light here subdued and mellow. He came upon another set of French doors and tried them--these opened on a massive library with ornate furniture and a brass staircase that curved up to the second floor as delicately as the curve of a pretty woman’s hips. Josef stood in the middle of the room, before a waning fire that glowed in a stone-lined fireplace. He turned, startled at the intrusion, and the firelight made the tears on his cheeks glimmer like delicate crystals. 

“I’m sorry,” Eliot said as he began to close the doors again. “I didn’t know--” 

“How to knock?” Josef asked as he turned back toward the fire. His right arm rose and Eliot looked elsewhere as the older vampire dashed it across his eyes. “But now that you’ve discovered my sanctuary, you might as well come in.” 

Eliot stepped into the library and closed the doors behind him. 

“With Quentin gone and Margo still keeping human hours, I was simply wandering around, that’s all. I didn’t mean to disturb you.” 

Josef cleared his throat and turned toward Eliot. He wore a black silk robe over what looked like authentic silk Oriental pajamas and matching slippers. 

“It must be strange, keeping such close company with a human. Do you ever feed from her?” 

“No,” Eliot frowned. “And to ask, even in times of hunger, would be a terrible breach of our relationship.” 

“Perhaps so.” Josef picked up a fireplace poker and stirred the dying fire. “Does she satisfy you in other ways? I’ve heard of human women who lust after vampires.” 

“No.” 

“Before you became a vampire?” 

“No!” Eliot frowned. “I’ve always preferred the company of men. Quentin is my partner. No other.” 

“Mmmm.” Embers swirled up from the fire as Josef poked the final two logs in place and watched them ignite. “You know, it’s strange--sit,” he interrupted himself as he gestured to a plush wing chair nearby. Eliot indulged him despite the rude questions he’d been asking.

“What is?” 

Josef sat in an identical chair nearby so he and Eliot faced each other. Phineas drifted into the room like a ghost, left a tray with a decanter and two glasses, then drifted back out, wordless. Josef leaned over and popped the decanter open, pouring out warm, fresh blood into both glasses. Eliot watched, an eyebrow arching in curiosity. 

“It’s strange,” Josef continued, that even in my human youth, I never took a wife. I was well past the age and could have married and started a family, had I wanted.” 

“Yet you didn’t.” 

“No. And then shortly after, I was turned and came here to Lithuania, and I met Matis.” His dark eyes lifted to Eliot’s amber ones as he sipped his drink. “It’s amusing to me how many things come into such a sharp focus once you turn. Matis always said that vampires have a special kind of sight that allows them to see the truth in people, and I suppose that includes one's self. But you didn’t need that sight to understand yourself, did you?” 

“No.” Eliot shook his head. “But becoming a vampire helped me understand exactly what I wanted when the time came.” 

“Quentin,” Josef said, and Eliot smiled a bit. 

“Yes.” 

“He’s a funny little fellow, isn’t he?” Josef asked. “Extremely altruistic for a vampire. I still don’t understand why he defended me when that hunter attacked, or why he never expected thanks for the deed.”   


“He believes our kind should help and protect each other,” Eliot replied. “Despite my insistence that we should each look after ourselves. It’s the same with magicians--it’s why he wants to find a cure for this damnable plague.” 

“That plague . . . where do you think it came from?” 

“After we saw--” Eliot hesitated but Josef only nodded and twirled one hand in a gesture for him to continue. “Quentin thinks the magic we sensed there and the plague are related. That’s why he went to Oxford.” 

“But why the hell would a magician want to start a plague among his own people? It doesn’t seem to make much sense.” Josef drained his glass and set it back on the tray. 

“In my experience, people do such things because they want power,” Eliot replied. “But whoever slayed your companion left behind the residue of such dark magic that it made us all feel ill. So if they already have a great deal of power, then I’d say you’re correct. It doesn’t make much sense.” He watched the fire glow. “But I hope Q comes back with a few answers.” He raised his glass to eye level to peer at the ruby liquid. “This is excellent.” 

“My private reserve,” Josef nodded. “Matis was the first vampire I ever met that encouraged me to live and profit from humans instead of hunting and killing them.” 

“Was he the one who made you?” 

“No,” Josef replied. “I never knew that one.” 

“Then we have that in common,” Eliot nodded. “Once it happened, I had to kind of muddle through and find my own way.” He paused. “So you aren’t from Lithuania. Originally, I mean.” 

“No.” Josef folded his hands in his lap and watched the fire. “Ireland.”   
_ So I was right about that accent _ , Eliot thought to himself. For a few moments, the hiss and crackle of the fire filled in the gaps of their conversation. 

“I never expected this life,” Josef said suddenly. “Not in the slightest.” 

“No,” Eliot shook his head. “Nor I.” 

“Do you suppose it’s our lot to be miserable?” Josef asked, and Eliot drained his glass before setting it down. 

“No. I’m not an unhappy man--I have Q and Margo.” He paused, searching for words that wouldn’t sound patronizing to the older vampire, lest he take offense. “I believe you’ve suffered terrible misfortune, Josef. But if we can discover who killed your companion, perhaps in the future you might find another.” 

“I think it would be very difficult to match what I had with Matis.” 

“Perhaps you can kidnap another young vampire,” Eliot suggested, and Josef sat up, blinking, ready to retort until he saw the amused light dancing in Eliot’s amber eyes. His own narrowed, but then his expression relaxed as he looked back to the fireplace’s crackling glow.

“Perhaps.” 

____________________________________________________________________________

Two days passed, then three, with no word from Quentin. Eliot took to wandering Josef’s home during the evening hours and usually found himself in the big library with the older vampire, where they shared a glass of blood or two and talked about the magical plague, as well as the possible future of their kind. Josef didn’t mention Matis often, and when he did, Eliot could see how painful it was for him. 

_ When you live for eternity _ , he thought to himself,  _ memories only become sharper and can slice like a razor. The wounds never scar over.  _

On the fifth night, a boy from the village arrived with a note for Josef. As he took the envelope and gave the boy a few coins for his trouble, Eliot hovered close as he recognized Quentin’s handwriting. 

“It’s from Q! Margo!” He shouted down the hallway. “We have a note from Q!” 

Margo came out of her room a moment later, pulling on a robe over a pair of silk rose-colored pajamas. 

“God, finally! What’s it say?” 

Josef opened the envelope and passed the folded piece of paper to Eliot, who opened and scanned it with eager eyes. 

“He says not to worry, he’s all right. The weather there is very cold, but Brakebills Oxford is truly a sight to behold.” 

“Of course,” Margo smiled. “He’d probably move in if he could.” 

“He says he’s found something that he doesn’t want to put in writing in case this letter is intercepted, but he’ll be home in a few more days’ time, after he’s collected a bit more information.” He traced the elegant Q at the bottom of the page with one fingertip. Margo put a hand on his arm. 

“I know how much you worry for him, El,” she said, and Eliot glanced down at her. 

“Only because of his nature. He can be much too trusting of people, and since we have no idea how deep this thing goes, anyone might be an enemy.” He glanced at Josef. “Now I almost understand why you thought Quentin was out to harm you.” 

“Almost?” 

“All right, fine, I understand it!” Eliot rolled his eyes at the older vampire’s inability to let him get away with absolutely anything. 

“Thank you.” Josef nodded. “What do you think he might have found over there in Oxford?” 

“I’m not sure. But knowing Quentin, it’ll be something useful.” 

___________________________________________________________________________

Quentin returned to Lithuania on a blustery evening four days later, his skin pale with the cold but his eyes bright and brimming with news. Eliot threw the door open as he saw his companion coming up the road, struggling to hold in a grin but finding it impossible. He let it come and opened his arms as Quentin struggled through the five or six inches of fresh snow and flung himself into Eliot’s arms. 

“El . . . I’m so glad to see you!” He said, and Eliot wrapped his arms around him. 

“My dearest heart,” Eliot murmured in his ear. “I missed you so!” He tilted Quentin’s chin upward and kissed his cold lips, pushing back his wind-tangled hair. Quentin kissed him with all the eagerness of his eternal youth and Eliot put a hand on his cheek. “Are you all right?” 

“Yes, I’m fine,” Quentin said as Josef came to close the front door, as the wind drove mad swirls of snow over the threshold. “Hello, Josef.” He offered his hand and after a moment, Josef took it and gave it a squeeze. 

“I’m pleased to see you’ve returned safely.” He eyed the way Quentin’s travel bag bulged. “And with what looks like quite a bit of information.” 

Quentin nodded. 

“I just hope it helps us.” 

“Meet me in the library after you’ve changed and had a meal. I’ll send Phineas with a little something for you.” 

“I appreciate that, thank you,” Quentin said as Eliot took his hand and they walked off toward the room they’d been sharing. 

“My poor sweetling,” Eliot said as he shut the bedroom door behind them. “You’re so cold!” 

“I didn’t want to risk using the travel portal so close to the house,” Quentin replied as he unslung his bag and set it on the bed. Eliot brought him a fresh change of clothing and watched as his partner undressed, admiring his lean form, the freckles on his shoulders, the way his spine worked as he squirmed out of his shirt. Margo came to the connecting door of the rooms a moment later, a robe tossed on over her pajamas. 

“Quentin!” She exclaimed, and Quentin started as he hurried to finish pulling on the dark slacks Eliot brought him. 

“Margo, hey--” 

“Oh please,” she smirked as she came into the room and went to hug him. “You’ve seen one willy, you’ve seen them all! When did you get back?” 

“Just a few moments ago, really. We were going to wake you for a meeting.” 

“You damn well hadn’t better leave me out!” Margo fumed. “I know I’m not a vampire--” 

“That’s never been an issue,” Quentin frowned, and she folded her arms over her chest. 

“Maybe not. I just--” She pressed her lips together and sighed. “It’s good to see you, Q,” she said at last, and he took her hands. 

“I thought about you both every moment I was gone,” he said as Phineas came in, set a tray with a decanter and two glasses down, and left, moving as silent as a shadow. Quentin went to the tray and filled both glasses, bringing one to Eliot. 

“Where do you suppose he gets the blood from?” Margo asked, and Quentin took a long draw from his glass. 

“I think he collects it for us as he hunts. He told me that he doesn’t kill unless he has to.” He refilled his glass. “This doesn’t bother you, does it, Margo?” 

“No. I’m not one of those women who faints in the parlor from pony exhaustion.” 

“What the hell is pony exhaustion?” Quentin asked, blinking, and she grinned. 

“Just what it sounds like. You dunderhead.” She glanced from one man to the other. “So are we going to have this meeting or not?” 

___________________________________________________________________________

The four of them met in Josef’s library, which Quentin marveled over until Eliot had to lead him over to a chair and sit him down. Phineas brought tea and sandwiches for Margo and a fresh decanter of blood for his master, Quentin, and Eliot. Quentin unbuckled his travel bag and withdrew several thick books, his spell journal, and a few sheafs of paper with what looked like sketches or rubbings. 

“I’m not entirely sure how all of this ties together, but one thing I do know is that the plague isn’t a plague at all--it’s a curse.” 

Margo sipped her tea and set the cup down. 

“A curse!” 

“Yes, you see . . .Oxford keeps records of archaeological digs that go back centuries, much further back than American records do. And look here . . .” He shuffled the papers until he came across a sketch of what looked like amulets, all in different shapes. “These were recovered in a dig near Rome in 1640.” 

Eliot leaned closer to examine the marks on the front of each. 

“These runes are magical,” he said, tracing one with the tip of his finger, and Quentin nodded. 

“The dig was never publicized . . . back then, only scholars had access to the results. I found this at the Brakebills library, the one they keep on the top floor of the Oxford building.” Quentin flashed a grin of appreciation. “It’s amazing how people pass through that building every day and never suspect there’s a hidden archive there. You should see the stacks there, they’re twice or even three times the size of the library at our Brakebills! I had to use levitation spells just to browse--” 

“Q,” Eliot intoned, bringing Quentin back to the subject at hand. The young man blinked. 

“Right! So, uh . . . these amulets are hollow. They were designed to carry spells: mostly binding ones, where you bound a person or place to whatever outcome you wanted.” 

“Like a love spell,” Margo chimed in, and Quentin nodded. 

“A lot of them were also for success in business and even for sports. But--” He turned a page and then opened a book. “Ones like this carried curses and hexes. Old magic . . . old and dark, too.” He looked up at his friends. “And whoever carried the amulet and bound himself to it could control it.” He tapped the book page, which featured a clear picture of one of these amulets. “Look at the etching on this one.” 

Margo moved the book a bit closer. The amulet itself was triangular in shape and the carving on the front was little more than a rudimentary winged figure, but one hand held a sword and the crude expression on the face held a kind of wild fury. 

“Ultio,” she said. Quentin nodded. 

“I recognized her too, from our Roman mythology and magic course.” 

“Who was she?” Josef asked. 

“She was the Roman goddess of revenge. The Greeks called her Poine, but she’s basically the same in either culture. The Romans built golden statues and altars devoted to her.” 

“And created amulets in her likeness too, apparently.” Josef nodded. 

“Yes, but here’s where it gets odd.” Quentin pulled a sheaf of newspaper from his bag. “One of these amulets was stolen from the Capitoline Museum in Rome, three years ago, about a month before the plague began at Brakebills U.S. The guards couldn’t explain it--there was no sign of a break-in or broken glass . . . it was just missing from the display case.” 

“A magician,” Eliot said, and Quentin nodded. 

“That’s what I believe too, El.” 

“Q, not that I don’t appreciate your painstaking research, but why would a magician steal an amulet that would curse other magicians? And how does it tie in with the vampire killings?” 

“Well, uhm . . . I couldn’t get him to go on record for me--he’d barely speak of the details at all, but the librarian at the Oxford Brakebills library hinted that there may be ties between the theft and this society called the Sterling Wizards Guild.” 

“That’s a story for first years,” Eliot said, waving a dismissive hand, and Quentin shook his head. 

“That’s what I used to think too El, but look!” He shuffled through the papers and showed him a rubbing. “This was--is--their symbol!” He pointed at the perfect circle with three connected half-circles inside it, the connection creating a small triangle in the middle. Josef raised an eyebrow and muttered something in a language Quentin didn’t recognize. 

“What, Josef?” He asked, and Josef ran a hand over his mouth in a bemused gesture. 

“This guild . . . is it of ancient origins?” He asked, and Quentin nodded. 

“The librarian wouldn’t tell me much, but yes, it’s rumored to stretch back centuries. Do you recognize it?” 

“Somewhat. It’s similar to Druid symbols I . . .” He stood. “Excuse me a moment.” He left the library with quick, purposeful steps and Eliot frowned. 

“What was that all about, do you think?” He asked, and then Josef returned just as suddenly, a piece of tattered canvas in his hand. He sat down, placed it in the middle of the table, and unfolded it. Eliot leaned closer and then reared back, his amber eyes wide, as he realized he was looking at a piece of preserved skin. Margo put a hand to her mouth and Quentin stared at the burn that marked that skin--a burn that nearly matched the symbol on the rubbing. Josef folded his hands in his lap, but not before Eliot saw how they trembled. 

“I cut this away from Matis’ chest after I found him on the road,” Josef said in a quiet tone. “It was the only thing the bounty hunter left behind.” 


	14. 14

“Jesus,” Margo muttered as she stared at the piece of skin. It looked yellowed and leathery. “But if this cult or guild or whatever it is really does exist, why aren’t all magicians told about it?” 

“Because it’s a carefully guarded secret kept by its members. The guild always has the same number of magicians--eleven--one of the three master numbers in numerology,” Quentin explained. “And according to legend, when one of the eleven dies, a pre-ordained magician takes his or her place. The head of the guild serves up to 100 years or more.” 

“What’s the connection, Q?” Eliot asked, seeing the look in his companion’s eyes. Quentin bit his lower lip in thought. 

“It’s more of the hypothesis.” 

“All right, let’s have it then,” Eliot coaxed, and Quentin looked up at him. 

“If what I’ve discovered is true and the rumors about the Wizard’s Guild is correct, then I believe the current leader has died and whoever took his or her place is making a massive grab for power. Not just to lead the Guild but to rule magic everywhere . . . all over the world.” 

“But how do we find this out for sure, if no one will talk about this group?” Margo asked, and a soft voice spoke from the doorway. 

“I believe I can help.” 

The foursome moved as one, their heads swiveling in that direction. Phineas stood in the doorway, watching them with a solemn expression. Josef stood and beckoned his servant forward. 

“Phineas, come in. It’s all right . . .” He watched the old man, curious but cautious as well. He’d been Matis’ footman before Josef had come to Lithuania and he really had no idea how old Phineas was--he’d never really thought to ask. “What can you tell us?” 

Phineas stood before the group, hands clasped behind his back. 

“You must forgive me for not speaking earlier, sir,” he said to Josef. “I didn’t believe it was my place.” 

“I understand,” Josef nods. “Your position with me is assured, old friend, no matter what you have to say.” 

Relief flickered in the old man’s dark eyes, tucked under thick, bushy grey eyebrows. 

“The Sterling Wizards Guild is very real,” he began. “I know because my great-grandfather was once a member.” 

Josef blinked at him. 

“You’re a magician?” He asked, his voice cracking, and Phineas shook his head. 

“No sir. The ambient magic in my family seemed to have rather dried up by the time I was born. My father had some, but not nearly as much as my grandfather had hoped. But my father told me many stories about the Guild, and how its members worked to balance the magical energies in the world. If what young Quentin Coldwater says is true, then any magical being is likely in grave danger.” 

“Can you tell us about the Guild?” Eliot asked, and Phineas nodded. 

“Its history goes back millennia . . . not even the oldest records tell of the beginning. But yes, the Guild has always numbered eleven, including the Sterling Liege Lord. He directs the purpose of the group.” 

“And this person serves until his death?” Eliot asks. 

“That’s correct, sir.” 

“If this person is already in power, then you’re right, my old friend, we’re all in very real danger.” He stood and put his hands on Phineas’ shoulder. “I know what you risk, telling us any of this. But please . . . we need one more piece of information. Where does the Guild dwell?” 

The old man’s mouth worked. 

“Pray, my master, don’t ask me!” He almost whispered it. Josef didn’t stare at him; he didn’t want the old man to fall under his thrall, but he did give the footman a brief, gentle shake. 

“But I must, Phineas. If Quentin is right and the new Sterling Liege Lord wants to reorder the magical world and start with the destruction of my race, we cannot simply stand by and let it happen! Don’t you understand?” He pointed to the piece of branded skin. “It may very well be why Matis is dead! Now please, Phineas, I beg you!” 

The old man closed his eyes. 

“May my ancestors forgive my indiscretions in service to you, my master,” he sighed. “The Sterling Guild resides in a shielded castle, in nearly the center of Romania.” 

“Shielded? You mean warded?” Quentin asked, and Phineas nodded. 

“Very much like your wards, young sir, only much more powerful.” 

“Like the ones they use to hide the entire Brakebills campus,” Eliot put in. 

“Indeed. They can hide as much or as little as they please.” 

Josef turned to the others. 

“If all this is true, then whoever ordered my companion’s murder is in Romania. Phineas, please pack me a few bags.” 

“You can’t go alone,” Quentin said. “If this council wants magic reordered and all vampires dead, then you’re going to need help. We’ll come with you.” 

Josef’s dark eyes ticked over each of the magicians. Finally, he nodded. 

“Very well.”

____________________________________________________________________________

_ The City of Medias _

_ Transylvania, Romania  _

_ One day later  _

“I suppose if anything we were lucky enough to travel by train.” 

Quentin, Josef, Eliot, and Margo stepped onto the station platform as the train they’d ridden puffed and belched columns of black smoke before settling into a low grumble, where it would wait to pick up transfer passengers before heading on toward locations further east. While the group had no real direct starting point, Medias was in the center of Romania and one of the largest settlements in the area. Thick clouds scudded across the sky, masking the moonlight, and a frigid wind made its way off the Tarnava Mare River. Margo shivered and pulled her wool coat closer. 

“It’s freezing!” She exclaimed, then sighed as the three vampires blinked at her. She scowled. “Trust me!” 

“There must be an inn nearby,” Eliot said. “Let’s go ask the stationmaster and get in out of the cold.” Eliot led the group inside with their bags. The station was little more than a large room, lined with wooden benches on either side. Eliot’s boots rang on the hardwood floor as he approached one of the two ticketing booths. One was closed, the ivory-colored shutter pulled down, looking to Quentin like a milky cataract. A middle-aged man with dark hair and a hawk nose stood at the other, stamping documents and sorting them into two nearby metal shelves. 

“Do you speak English?” Eliot asked. The man gave an apologetic wag of his head. Eliot asked the same question in French, then German. At that, he nodded. 

“Can you direct me to the nearest inn? My friends and I need lodgings.” 

“The Bloody Lion, sir,” the ticket man said. “Down the road, end of the street. Food and rooms, very reasonable.” 

“Thank you.” Eliot turned back to the group. 

“There’s an inn on the next corner, but we’ll probably have to walk.” He unwound a grey wool scarf from around his neck and put it around Margo’s instead, arranging it so it would help protect her face from the wind, and then kissed her cheek. She smiled and took his hand and then Quentin’s in the other as they headed out of the station and toward the Bloody Lion. 

The building at the corner, a two-story stone affair with a slate roof the color of ripe chestnuts announced itself as the Bloody Lion by means of a thick metal sign. A lion’s head roared at the oncoming visitors, its mane blood red, the fangs equally so. Josef paused by the sign and gave a chuckle. 

“Seems fitting, no?” He asked, and Eliot tilted his head to one sign as he considered the bellowing big cat. 

“Maybe it’s a sign.” 

“Speaking of signs, I can’t feel my toes, which is a sign of hypothermia!” Margo exclaimed. “Can we please go inside?” 

“Yes, sorry love,” Eliot said, opening the door and letting his friends inside. They were greeted with the smell of baking bread, crackling logs in a well-banked fireplace, and the faint but mysterious scent of sage. The main room of the inn seemed to double as its dining room, and a few people sat along a wooden bench that ran the perimeter of the room, eating bowls of stew and hunks of fresh bread. A few lounged by the fireplace, and a tall, thin man stood by a sturdy but scarred table and Eliot approached him. He greeted him in German but the man only gave him a polite but puzzled smile. Josef tapped his elbow. 

“Allow me,” he said and greeted the man in Romanian. A conversation followed, the fellow’s face open and pleasant. Money exchanged hands and Quentin began to protest, but Josef waved him off. A moment later, he tucked several Romanian Leus into his vest. 

“I rented us two rooms.” He glanced at Margo. “I thought you might want your privacy.” 

“We can pay you back,” Quentin offered, and Josef shook his head. 

“I’ve as much to lose as you do on this quest, lad,” he said as the man behind the desk escorted them upstairs. He unlocked two doors with a set of brass keys and welcomed them inside. The rooms featured beds with homespun, colorful quilts, sturdy wooden dressers, and windows that looked out on grassy fields, the brush brittle with the coming winter. Margo’s room featured similar decor. Josef thanked the man, tipped him, and they settled in. 

“I’m starving,” Margo sighed as she joined the three men in their room and sat down on a bed to take off one of her boots, where she frowned at a blister on her heel. “Q, do you have any silver moss on you for this?” 

“I can check my bag,” Quentin nodded. “And I’m hungry too.” 

“As am I,” Josef admitted, and Eliot nodded as well. 

“I have my flask, but I believe I should conserve what’s in it.” He glanced at Josef. “I suppose we could go hunting . . . although it might arouse suspicion, it’s not a very big city.” 

“There is one option,” Josef replied as he went to the window. “And considering our situation, it may be the best one.” 

___________________________________________________________________________

As Margo requested and received a tub of hot water in which to soak and bathe, Josef and Eliot went out into the night to find what they needed. Half an hour later, Eliot used a concealment spell to bring the two young prostitutes into the room upstairs, where Josef put them under thrall. Each of them, one blonde, one brunette, submitted to his kisses and as Quentin fed from the blonde with care, Eliot and Josef fed off the brunette--Josef at her neck, Eliot at her wrist. At one point, Josef grinned at Eliot over the woman’s shoulder and Eliot felt a thrill shudder through him that came from sharing a feed. The blonde swooned a moment later and Quentin, his eyes still shining silver-blue, practically crawled into Eliot’s lap to lick the blood from the corner of his partner’s mouth. Eliot kissed him, one hand slipping to the back of his neck to caress and playfully squeeze there. Josef watched, his expression heated, as Quentin and Eliot touched tongues. Desire burned in the older vampire’s lower belly, layered with a fresh spasm of grief as he remembered Matis kissing him that way, loving him as no one had ever loved him. He looked away, and then a hand closed over his. He looked back up to see Eliot tugging him toward both himself and Quentin, and he hesitated. Eliot tugged at him again and Quentin took his other hand, nodding in silent agreement. A moment later, both hybrids were kissing his throat, his wrists, his mouth. Josef groaned and nudged the sleeping prostitutes aside as Quentin unbuttoned Josef’s shirt and latched onto a nipple, sucking hard. Josef hissed and plunged a hand into Quentin’s hair as Eliot peeled off his own shirt and gave Josef’s neck a sharp nip. 

“Why?” Josef managed as one of Quentin’s clever hands found its way to the fastening of his trousers and opened it to free his cock. 

“Because we’re all a part of each other,” Quentin murmured as his hand began to stroke and tease. “Because vampire, magician . . . it doesn’t matter.” 

“That’s . . . an awfully romantic notion for . . . a vampire, lad!” Josef managed, and Eliot grinned as he pushed Josef down on his back. 

“No more talk, Konstantin,” he said, and then Josef was moaning and trembling as Eliot and Quentin bent down to take turns licking and kissing his growing erection. Josef’s lean hips twisted and he petted their hair with both hands. Then Quentin knelt, straddling Josef’s hips, facing away from him, bumping his own erection against Josef’s so Eliot could tongue them both as he stroked his own erection. Josef ran his hands down Quentin’s lean, smooth back, skating his fingertips across the skin as Eliot’s tongue worked on the head of his erection. Something hummed between them--maybe it was because Eliot was Quentin’s sire and Josef sensed that bond to a higher degree through physical touch, but whatever it was, it was making his mind whirl with pleasure. 

“El, yes, yes love . . .” Quentin moaned, his ass gyrating against Josef’s lower belly as Eliot pleasured them both. He tensed, shuddered, and Josef felt the wet spurt of his orgasm. He gave a soft cry and Eliot allowed some of the fluid to splash against his lips before he sucked Josef’s erection up between them. Josef’s hips arched sharply and he bared his fangs in pleasure, giving himself over to it as the two other men shivered and moaned and spent their passions on each other. 

Some time later--Josef couldn’t be sure how much time had passed--he opened his eyes to see the women were gone. Quentin and Eliot slept next to him, a tangle of bare limbs and tousled hair. 

_ They didn’t have to include me _ , Josef thought to himself.  _ They could have pushed me aside and coupled right in front of me. I might even deserve that, after how I treated Quentin.  _

Eliot’s eyes opened all at once, locking eyes with Josef before the older vampire could pretend not to notice. Josef touched a finger to his mouth, as if Eliot’s and Quentin’s kisses had branded them. 

“The women?” He asked after a moment. 

“Safe as houses,” Eliot smiled. “I escorted them back to the tavern where we found them and paid them well for their services. I cast a spell on their memories for good measure. All they’ll remember is they had a profitable night.” 

“Excellent.” Josef smoothed down his hair with one hand. “Do you plan to do the same with me?” 

“I’m not sure if a spell like that would work with a pure vampire like yourself.” Eliot untangled himself from Quentin, who made a soft mewling noise. Eliot kissed his forehead until he quieted, then sat up. “Besides, why would I want to make you forget what we did? I’m not ashamed and I know Q isn’t either. He wouldn’t have participated otherwise.” He paused. “Do you regret it?” 

“No,” Josef said after a moment. “I would have refused if I’d felt any regret or sense that it was wrong. Matis . . . he lives in my memory and my heart, but he’s gone and my time of mourning him is past.” The corners of his Josef’s mouth quirked upward. “And I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it.” 

“I did too,” Eliot nodded. “And I daresay Q did too.” 

“He’s a bit of a fascinating creature,” Josef said, watching the young man sleep. “Sometimes those who are turned so young don’t always thrive.” 

“We’re all of an age,” Eliot observed, and Josef nodded. 

“Yes. But if not for Matis, I would have probably starved or fell victim to a hunter. And Quentin had you. Those who don’t find a companion or who don’t stay with those who sired them don’t survive long. How did you manage?” Josef asked, and Eliot paused to take a sip from his flask. 

“Margo,” he said. “Even after I turned and left Brakebills, she never turned her back on me. She made sure I didn’t sink, tried to help me . . . she even brought me a few meals. Young guys from Brakebills who had certain sexual fantasies. I never drained any of them and she was always extremely discreet about taking them back to campus afterward. I’m not sure if I would have made it without her.” 

Will you turn her eventually? You must have considered it.” 

“Many times,” Eliot nodded. “I know she would make a successful and beautiful vampire. But she’s also my friend. I respect her. The choice must be hers.” 

“I suppose I understand that,” Josef nodded. “So many of us never get to make the decision--it is simply thrust upon us.” 

“Yes,” Josef murmured, and Eliot watched him. 

“How was it for you?” He asked, and Josef’s jaw tightened. 

“It was long ago, Eliot. It no longer matters.” 

Stymied, Eliot switched topics. 

“Have you ever made another?” 

“No. I’ve never had a reason to. Perhaps one day, if I ever find I want another companion. I am curious though. What is it like, making another vampire?”

“With Q, it was intense,” Eliot admitted. “But perhaps that’s only because the stakes were so high. If not for that ability, I would have lost him to this damn curse that we thought was some kind of magical virus.” He stroked a thumb over one of Quentin’s eyebrows. 

“Do you believe Quentin is correct about this Guild, and its intent?” 

Eliot nodded. 

“It makes sense, Josef. With so much going unchanged for so long and then changing suddenly, it must be.” He looked down at his sleeping lover. “But if we’re going to protect ourselves and our kind, we have to find out who the new Sterling Liege Lord is and what his plans are.” 


	15. 15

“My lord . . . I have news from our priests.” 

Appius Braye, Liege Lord of the Sterling Wizard’s Guild, paused in his writing and glanced up at his second in command, Damion Brone. The stocky yet toned man stood in the doorway, a parchment in one hand. 

“Enter,” Appius nodded. At 58 and at the apex of his magical abilities, he commanded the guild without opposition and stood poised to change the order of what he saw as his world--the magical world--and reclaim it from those who wrongly believed they belonged. The vampires, the succubi, the fortune-tellers, and, most importantly, young American upstarts who believed they had any claim to magical energies. 

Damion approached the desk and handed the parchment over. It was rolled and sealed with wax and stamped with the emblem of their order. Appius broke the seal, unrolled the single piece of parchment, and nodded as he read it over. 

“It’s as I thought.” He paused to sip a cup of spiced tea. 

“My lord?” 

“Americans. They’ve come here searching for a cure to what they believe is a magical plague.” A thin smile crossed the man’s lips, surrounded by dark goatee and mustache. 

“How much do you believe they’ve discovered?” Damion asked, and Appius rolled the scroll back up, securing it with a magical thread before storing it away in a nearby drawer. 

“Perhaps more than we’d expect. Do you know what makes these Americans different from others who have sought to find the plague’s source?” 

“No, my lord.” 

“Two of them are vampires, Damion. Vampires with a great deal of ambient magic.” He steepled his fingers under his chin. “As if vampires weren’t enough of a sore on our community! Our priests say they travel with a human magician--a woman--and the vampire from Vilnius.” 

“That one!” Damion scowled. 

“Yes. We’d be rid of him now, just as we are of his troublesome partner, if not for the interference of those Americans. They’ve managed to make some kind of accord with Konstantin, and now they’ve come to Romania.” The man’s frown deepened but it cut no lines into his skin. His place as Liege Lord assured he would age slowly, and he already looked perhaps a decade or so younger than his actual age. His dark hair had yet to show any grey, and his goatee lacked any flecks of grey or white. 

“Our hall is well-warded, my Lord. I doubt these Americans have the power to locate us.” 

“If it was one or perhaps even two magicians from America, I might agree with you. But these--creatures, these perversions of natural magic--they may have more power than we realize.” 

“Then do we strike first, my lord?” 

Appius sat silent for a moment and then his dark eyes narrowed. 

“Yes,” he replied. “But not in the way you might think.” 

____________________________________________________________________________

After a restorative sleep, the group decided their efforts might bring better results if they split up to search for information about the Sterling Wizard’s Guild. Eliot and Margo went off in one direction, Josef and Quentin in the other (with a promise from Josef to protect the younger vampire) and Margo glanced up at her friend as they headed down a cobblestone road about two blocks east of the Bloody Lion. 

“You and Josef aren’t quibbling nearly as much as you used to,” Margo noted. “What’s that all about?” 

The previous evening and the memory of the taste of Josef’s lips flashed through Eliot’s thoughts. 

“Oh. Well, I suppose we reached an understanding.” 

“El, come on. I know I’m a woman and just your everyday human magician but even I know there’s more to it than that! I know we both saw how Josef’s hand lingered on Quentin’s arm as they walked away and there’s no way you would have tolerated that unless . . .” Margo blinked. “You didn’t.” 

“It was we. Quentin and I. We were feeding, Josef included and the atmosphere, it--” Eliot shook his head. “Margo, I can’t explain what it was like.” 

“Right. Because I’m not a vampire?” She asked, and Eliot stepped around her, blocking her path. 

“I don’t think that’s fair. Margo, you know how I feel about you. I probably would have perished after I was turned if not for you, and I told Josef that.” He took her hands. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, but you can’t refuse my offer to make you like us and then complain that I don’t share everything with you” He took her hands as her dark eyes flashed and she tried to step around him. “No! Listen to me, please. My bond with Quentin is something I can’t put into words. It’s something you experience. If he and I allowed Josef in, you must understand it’s because that is my nature, both as a vampire and as a man who enjoys other men.” He squeezed her hands. “What Josef, Q, and I shared last night . . . I would never put you in such a position. Those women were donors, nothing more.” He leaned over and kissed her forehead. Margo nodded. 

“I think I understand, El. And . . . maybe I do get frustrated because I can’t make up my own mind about where I belong.” 

“Here.” Eliot tugged her into a hug, held her. “You belong here.” 

Margo rested her cheek against Eliot’s chest. 

“But for how long?” She murmured. Eliot tilted her chin upward with one big, gentle hand. 

“For a lifetime, or for eternity, my dearest friend,” he smiled. “The choice is still open to you. Come . . . we have a lot of ground to cover.” 

Several blocks away, in the other direction, Josef and Quentin walked side by side, Josef’s bootheels ringing on the cold cobblestone. 

“I want to discuss what happened.” 

“Oh. Uhm, all right.” Quentin tucked a lock of hair behind one ear and looked up at the taller vampire. “What did you want to say?” 

“I wanted to thank you,” Josef replied, and Quentin blinked like a baby owl. 

“Thank me?” 

“Yes, Quentin. I haven’t felt that kind of pleasure or connection since Matis was murdered and it made me remember that when beings like myself get lonely, they can get bitter and hopeless and feel nothing but anger. I suppose some of those feelings come with having a heart that doesn’t beat, but last night, thanks to you and Eliot, I remember that there are other ways to count yourself as a living thing.” 

Quentin smiled. 

“I kind of felt that way until I met Eliot,” he confessed. “The plague, or curse, or whatever this thing is, it took a lot of my friends away, including this girl named Alice. She was a talented magician but then it took her away. I felt empty after that. Hopeless. But then Margo introduced me to Eliot and even before I caught the sickness and he turned me, I felt like I’d found a light in a very dark room.” He glanced up at Josef. “Was it like that for you, when you met Matis?” 

“Very much so,” Josef nodded.

“What was he like?” Quentin asked. “If you’d rather not talk about him, I understand.” 

“It is difficult,” Josef admitted. “Speaking of him is like conjuring up a ghost that haunts you long after you finish speaking. But perhaps some of that is my own doing.” Josef glanced up at the moon, halved like a pale piece of fruit. “He was a skilled vampire--clever, adept at hiding his true face when he needed to, and somehow, he’d unlocked the secret of getting along with humans while preying on them at the same time. I suppose if I hadn’t met him, I would have stumbled into the pattern of killing, running, and hiding, but Matis knew a better way. He protected me from that.” 

“I’m sorry he’s gone,” Quentin said. “And I’m sorry that a magician was responsible.” They paused at the corner and Josef smiled down at him. 

“As strange as this may seem now, Quentin, I know it wasn’t your fault.” He paused. “Would you protest if I said I wanted to kiss you?” 

“No,” Quentin answered in an earnest tone, and Josef bent down to brush his lips against those of the smaller man before touching his face. 

_ This boy must be some kind of truly talented magician to make me feel like this, _ Josef thought to himself. _ Be careful, Konstantin . . . don’t put your foot in it!  _

“We’d better move on,” Quentin said after a moment. As a vampire, he rarely blushed but Josef swore he saw his cheeks color just enough for it to register on Josef’s thermal radar. 

“All right,’ he nodded, and they crossed the street by the light of the waning half-moon. They passed a row of wooden-framed homes, a narrow alley between each, and it was from one of these alleyways that a voice hissed at the two men as they passed. 

“ _ Hei! _ You there!” 

Quentin turned, already cautious, remembering the sound of that arrow as it sailed through the air to pierce Josef’s chest. A stout, hunched figure came from the alley, wearing simple homespun clothing. His scraggly white hair hung past his shoulder blades, his pate bald and marred with age spots. 

“Were you speaking to us?” Josef asked in Romanian, his tone edged with suspicion, and the old man nodded and beckoned them closer. 

“You seek the Sterling Guild,” he said in a quiet tone, though his voice cracked with age the way thin ice develops sudden fissures when stepped on. 

“Who are you?” Josef asked, taking a step forward, and the man shrank back a little, both hands in the air like a supplicant. 

“A friend, sir, a friend!” 

“I don’t trust friends who materialize from alleyways and dangle what we’re looking for like you’d dangle a fish in front of a hungry cat.” 

Quentin held his own hands up, making a square of his fingers, then peered through them, casting a spell that would allow him to see through any disguises or glamors, but there was nothing but a stooped old man in a patched jacket and cloak. 

“Josef, it’s all right, I don’t see any deception, and there’s no illusion work.” Quentin watched the old man cringe before Josef’s angry stare. “What do you want?” He asked, and the old man brightened. 

“To help! I can take you to the Sterling Wizards!” 

“And why would you do that?” Josef asked. 

The old man reached out and touched Josef’s fine woolen coat. 

“No one wants to give a job to an old man like me. My strength has bled away like a puddle shrinks and dies in the sun. But I know things! Time hasn’t taken this!” He tapped his temple. “And you seem like the kind of man who’s well off, my fine sir.” 

“So it’s money you’re after,” Josef said, and the old man simpered. 

“Take pity on me!” 

“We’ll see,” Josef replied in a mild tone, then drew Quentin aside. 

“We can’t trust him. No disguises or not, lad, this is much too coincidental.” 

“I agree, but we don’t exactly have an express ticket to the Guild’s hidden hall, either.” 

Josef turned back to the old man. 

“I’ll pay you, but for information only. We have no need of a guide. Can you write? Make marks on paper?” 

Quentin dug out his sketchbook and a pen from his leather bag and knelt down in the alley, directing the old man to do the same, if he was able. He managed with a few grunts and groans, and Quentin handed him the pen. 

“Make us a map,” he said. You don’t have to show us exactly where the hall is, just get us as close as you can.” 

The old man drew in a laborious way, as if he wasn’t used to handling a pen, and Josef watched over his shoulder like a stern schoolmaster. Finally, the man handed a paper up with a rudimentary map etched on it. Josef glanced over it, muttering to himself in Lithuanian as he went over some of the major landmarks. 

“How do you know where the Guild hall is?” Quentin asked the old man, who rose and made a sweeping motion with both hands. 

“Cleaned the hall floors and windows for many years, sir. Till I got too old! Serves them right that I tell you where they hide, after dismissing me without so much as a word of thanks when I got too old to wield the broom!” 

“They dismissed you?” Josef asked. 

The old man nodded. 

“And how did you know what we were looking for?” 

“I have no way to earn money for food . . . I beg in front of the Bloody Lion and sometimes the cook gives me food scraps and water once the tavern closes for the evening. I hear things. Nothing wrong with my ears, you know!” He gave a shrill cackle that made Quentin wince. Josef removed a money pouch from his belt and shook out a handful of coins. 

“Payment for the map,” he said, handing them over to the old man. “And if and when we return--” he caught Quentin’s expression and shrugged. “I can try to make an arrangement with the owner of the Bloody Lion about your food and lodging. If you truly are what you appear to be.” Josef glanced up at the night sky. “Meet us here again the next time the moon looks like that.” He nodded to it, knowing the old man might not understand how to tell time in a practical way. “Do you understand?” 

“At the next first quarter,” the man nodded. 

“Yes, that’s right.” 

“If and when,” the stranger repeated, then went shuffling away down the alley. “If and when!” He crowed, and Quentin frowned. 

“I don’t like that man,” he observed, and Josef nodded and patted his friend’s shoulder. 

“Nor I,” he said, and the Irish lilt in his voice that tended to dominate the learned Lithuanian accent when he was nervous or angry showed itself now. “But you didn’t see any deceit in him--” 

“No magical disguises, no, but I couldn’t tell if he was lying or not. Margo is better at reading deception than I am.” He shook his head. “Maybe we should have all stayed together.” 

“You can’t hang the moon on a maybe,” Josef replied in a grim tone before he glanced at the map once more. “Let’s press on.” 

___________________________________________________________________________

The pair walked for perhaps an hour in the chilly evening air. The wind and snow had eased around sunset, which made the going easier. At one point they climbed a steep hill and found themselves looking out across the valley, the Tarnanva Mare cutting through it like a black, curving ribbon. 

“If that old man was right and really did want to help us, then the Guild Hall is somewhere down in that valley, right along the banks of the river,” Josef said. 

“Like Brakebills back home,” Quentin said. “It’s on the Hudson River, in Upstate New York. Have you ever been to America, Josef?” He asked as he wrote Margo and Eliot a note, folded it into the shape of a bird, cast on it, and watched it fly off into the night. 

“No. Matis and I saw Paris, Germany, and we went to Cicily once for a vacation but we never ventured across the sea.” His dark eyes skittered away from Quentin’s questioning expression. “I’m not a fan of traveling by boat.” 

“Why? Surely you aren’t afraid of drowning,” Quentin jested, and Josef forced a smile. 

“No. It’s simply a quirk.” He found a path that led downward, toward that cold and brittle-looking valley that faced another long Romanian winter. Mountains loomed on the other side, their peaks jagged and unforgiving. 

“I can see why they keep the hall here, if that’s really where it is,” Quentin said as they slipped and slid and half-tumbled down the steep path. “The mountain range on one side, nothing between Medias and that rise we just passed . . . it would be pretty well protected, even if it wasn’t warded--shit!” Quentin gasped as his right foot slipped on a blister of ice and he went rolling, legs snapping repeatedly over his head, as he fell. He hit the bottom of the slope and slid the last few feet, laying on his back. Josef leaped, propelling himself forward, and reached him almost before he stopped sliding. 

“That’s one way to reach the valley floor,” he observed, and Quentin opened one eye to peer up at him. 

“I’m so very glad I amuse you!” 

“Come to think of it--” Josef flashed Quentin a grin as he avoided a leg sweep that would have felled him if he hadn’t been paying attention. He reached a hand down and Quentin took it, allowing the taller man to help him up. “Relax, Quentin. Vampires don’t bruise.” 

“Hmmph.” Quentin groused and rubbed his backside with both hands once Josef helped him to his feet. “I don’t know if I trust that!” He glanced around. “I told El and Margo to meet us here so we could make the rest of the trip together. Do you think we’re close?” 

“The old man’s map says we are,” Josef nodded as he studied it again. “If we can trust it.” He cursed in Gaelic. “I still feel there’s something too convenient about him.” 

“It’s possible he heard us talking, I suppose,” Quentin said as he gathered a few things that had fallen from his bag during the tumble. “But I never saw him near the Bloody Lion after nightfall, did you?” 

“Can’t say that I did.” Josef folded the map back up and put it in his vest pocket. “Of course, that may mean nothing. How long do you think it might take for Eliot and Margo to arrive?” 

“An hour, maybe a bit more depending on when they get the note. For now, all we can do is wait and try to keep out of sight until they arrive.” 

And so they waited. The river, slow and sluggish at this time of year, slid by in a hypnotic way that made Quentin want to doze despite usually keeping evening hours. He wrote a few notes in his spellbook, his ability to see in the dark a plus. After almost an hour he began to drift, then doze. His dreams filled with images of the past, which melded with fantastical events he’d never experienced. In one dream that took shape, the virus that had taken so many of his classmates at Brakebills was a living, malevolent being that devoured people, one by one. He seemed frozen in place as Margo and Eliot ran toward him, crying his name. Quentin reached for them but the black, swirling thing overtook them, flaying the skin from their bodies before stripping away flesh and organs, eating them with a terrible sucking, chewing sound that filled Quentin’s ears, and then it swirled toward him, bits of flesh and bone still visible. Someone called his name and strong hands gripped his shoulders, shaking him--

“Quentin, wake up!” Josef shouted in his ear and Quentin sat up all at once, his eyes wide. Though his lungs didn’t require air he gasped anyway, the transition from dream to reality so swift that he felt almost dizzy. He focused on Josef’s face, and what he saw there made his insides seem to shrivel--the older vampire looked terrified. That awful sound from his dream persisted and Quentin turned toward the river, following Josef’s gaze. 

An awful black wall of matter moved toward them, on the far side of the river. It resembled a massive torn ebony curtain, the thick strips of the thing jagged and irregular. They broke up as it moved, reformed, then broke again. The edges hissed with some kind of bubbling dark magic that Quentin could smell, even from this distance. It was the smell of a malevolent god, his breath stinking with the rotting flesh of human prey. Josef dragged Quentin to his feet. 

“Run!” He shouted, but Quentin’s heart dropped as he remembered his dream. Eliot and Margo were meeting them here--had it already found and devoured them? Or was this creature something completely different? Josef grabbed his hand and began tugging him along. Quentin stumbled along the uneven riverbank, and then, just as in his dream, he heard Eliot and Margo calling his name. He squirmed out of Josef’s hold and turned to see them coming down the steep embankment he’d fallen down earlier. Margo pointed to the uneven swirl of black matter--it crossed the river, tossing water and silt and mud as it moved. Josef turned back as he felt Quentin’s hand slip from his. As he watched, horrified, Quentin stepped between the thing and his friends, his hands raised, blue light flaring from his fingertips. 

_ “Croy’ki del’rah faaa!”  _ He shouted, and Eliot screamed something, the sound of the malevolent mass ripping the words from the air and devouring them. The thing reached the bank closest to them and Quentin lashed out with magical energy, tearing holes through it. It slowed but didn’t stop and then both he and Josef vanished into its swirling mass, held tight by the pulsing black strips. Quentin struggled as he and Josef were bound up tighter than flies in a spider’s web, and the sounds of Eliot and Margo screaming faded as the thing’s terrible magic overcame him. 


	16. 16

“It ate them! Oh God Eliot, oh Christ, did you see, it just ate them!” Margo cried as they both watched the swirling black mass move back across the river, sucking and bubbling. Eliot put an arm around Margo, fury running through his veins like volcanic lava. 

“I don’t think they’re dead, Margo . . . I think it carried them off somewhere. It’s all right!” He turned her toward him and tilted her chin up. “We have to follow it. The damn thing has to be made of magic and it’s going to have a signature!” 

Margo took a long breath and nodded, some of the panic leaving her face. 

“You’re right, that thing was moving with purpose. We need to get across the river.” She and Eliot walked to the river’s edge and Eliot reached down to pick up a piece of torn cloth. He held it to his nose and closed his eyes. 

“It’s a piece of Quentin’s shirt. Whatever that thing is, it must have tossed them right out of their clothes.” He picked up a few more tatters of cloth and then most of a leather boot--Josef’s. “Here, get up on my back and hang on,” he said, presenting his back to her as he bent down. Margo put her arms around his neck and wrapped her legs around his waist as he trotted toward the river. 

“The water doesn’t look that deep, maybe--Eliot, what--” she asked as he picked up speed, then she was gasping and watching the width of the river sail past underneath them as Eliot leaped over it as effortlessly as a stag clearing a fallen log on a woodland path. He landed on the other side without a hint of awkwardness. Margo climbed down off his back and faced him. 

“I assumed you were going to wade across!” 

“And ruin my suede loafers? I think not. Josef said being able to leap like a grasshopper comes in handy, and now I see what he meant.” Eliot straightened his coat. “Magic would’ve gotten the job done too, but with that thing we just saw, it might have interfered.” 

“Do you think it’s going to ward itself from being followed?” Margo asked, and Eliot’s nostrils flared. 

“I don’t know if it can. I can smell the residue on it, maybe we can follow it that way.” He took her hand. “Come on!” 

____________________________________________________________________________

The black swirling cloud held Quentin and Josef in its awful clutches as it moved east of the river and deep into the valley beyond. Neither Josef’s strength or Quentin’s magic seemed to have any effect on the thing and each of them sagged, stunned, rolled up in the shifting black mass. It headed toward the center of the valley, into a wide field of dry, winter-brittle grassland, and Quentin twitched as he felt it pass through a ward so strong that it made his own magic feel weak and small. A massive building loomed over them, one made of white marble and tall spires that came to multi-tipped points. Oblong windows gleamed, framed with overhanging arches that resembled eyelids. The mass passed through one wall and into a room cloaked in blackness. Quentin tried to focus on its contents, but the folds of the thing squeezed him until darkness crowded the corners of his vision. He fell onto a cold stone floor a moment later, and Josef toppled onto him a moment later. The thing vanished, and Quentin struggled to sit up. 

“Josef . . .” He squirmed out from under the other vampire and touched his face. “Josef, can you hear me?” 

“Yes,” Josef murmured after a moment, his eyes opening, his expression muddled. “I hear you. Where the hell are we?” 

“The hall of the Sterling Wizards’ Guild . . . I think. I saw it before that thing brought us inside.” He finally managed to sit up. “That old man. He must have been a plant after all.” 

“That’s where you’re wrong, Quentin Coldwater,” a voice said from the darkness, and a sudden beam of light illuminated the space. A figure appeared there at the same time, draped in white robes embroidered with gold sigils--magical runes. 

“Who are you?” Quentin asked, struggling to his feet, but a pointed finger and a muttered word had him sitting down hard again and then held in place. Josef seemed to struggle against a similar spell. 

“I am Appius Braye, the Liege Lord of the Sterling Wizards’ Guild.” The man’s dark eyes carried a strange glint, the irises ringed rose gold. “And it was my will that led you here. The old man spoke the truth--he did indeed once work in the hallowed halls of this place, but it was I who allowed him to hear your plans and lead you to the banks of the Tarnanva Mare! You made no step without my knowledge.” His gaze drifted to Josef and his lip curled back as if he’d bitten into a clove. “Vampire,” he said. “The one that escaped his fate on the trail to Vilnius.” 

Josef bared his fangs at the man. 

“Face me now, magician, and we’ll see who meets whose fate!” 

“As your companion did?” Braye asked in a mock-gentle tone. “The bounty hunter I paid to have that piece of bloodsucking filth slain and dismembered tells me he wept . . .then choked on the blood he stole from others as the hunter took his head.” 

Josef roared in fury and hurled himself at Braye, and the magician held out one hand, palm up, before flinging it in a wide arc. Josef flew off his feet at the motion and hit the far wall before crumpling into a silent heap. 

“Josef!” Quentin tried to go to him but found himself pinned in place by the more powerful magician. He casted, failed, tried again, and then found himself sliding up one wall, his limbs heavy. Braye watched, his eyes flashing. 

“Do you believe that your filthy hybrid magic is more powerful than mine? Or that you should be allowed to exist, with the darkness that flows within you?” He sent Quentin higher and higher up the wall. 

“Leave him . . . alone,” Josef groaned as he came around. “He’s . . . only a boy!” 

“He’s a disgusting bloodsucker, like you! The scourge of the magical realm--a scourge that I will soon deal with.” He let Quentin thud to the floor. “And as for that other hybrid and his female friend? I will deal with them as well, when they come to find you. And they will come, just as you came looking for me.” He crouched down and grabbed Quentin’s chin, tilting it upward and squeezing. “Is what you found meeting your expectations so far?” 

“You . . . you caused the magical plague,” Quentin managed to say. “But it was never a virus at all, was it! It was a hex, a massive curse.” 

“Of course it was!” Braye laughed and let go of Quentin’s chin. “But it is not over yet, boy. I will cleanse my community completely until only the truly deserving are left!” The beam of light appeared again and the magician stepped into it, flickering out of sight and leaving Quentin and Josef trapped in the room, which had no windows or discernable doors and towered hundreds of feet above their heads, where it came to a point. A cone-shaped turret capped this room on the exterior of the hall. Josef made his way over to Quentin in the dark and put a hand on his arm. 

“It looks like we’re up against it, lad.” 

Quentin nodded as he found Josef’s hand and squeezed it.

“I know. But as long as Eliot and Margo are still out there, we still have a chance.” 

“He’s the one,” Josef said with a tremor in his voice. “He’s the one who ordered Matis’ murder. I’m going to kill him!” 

“You may not have to--when Eliot finds him, he just might do it for both of us.” 

____________________________________________________________________________

Eliot and Margo traveled for miles, following the dank, stinking magical residue of the thing that had taken Quentin and Josef. The glint in Eliot’s hazel eyes told Margo that this magical dictator, whoever he was, had pain and hellfire coming for daring to take Quentin from him. 

“El,” she said at last, “I feel like this Guild leader is coaxing us right into a trap. He took Josef and Quentin as bait.” 

“I know,” Eliot nodded as he sniffed the air, following the scent like the hunter he truly was. 

“Then shouldn’t we go for help instead of walking into it?” 

Eliot glanced at her over his shoulder. 

“Go for help? To whom? Brakebills U.S. is empty, and we don’t have any other allies! I know we’re likely right where this magician supreme wants us to be, but I don’t see many other choices! We’re going to have to outsmart him!” 

“How?” Margo asked, and Eliot gave her a wry smile. 

“Let me work on that.” 

“Let you work on it?” She echoed in an incredulous tone, and Eliot changed direction with the scent of the thing. 

“I think I have an idea of sorts, at least when it comes to getting into the hall undetected when we find it. You trust me, right Margo?” 

“Oh  _ God _ ,” she groaned, and Eliot halted to take her hands. 

“Don’t you?” He asked again, and Margo nodded. 

“You know I do, you fanged imbecile!” She sighed. “All right . . . tell me your plan.” 

____________________________________________________________________________

“My Liege Lord, would it not make sense to simply dispose of the vampire and the hybrid now? It would be a glorious start to the cleansing,” Damion Brone said as he watched his master page through a massive spellbook. The thing was so huge that it took four people to move it, although it usually sat on a gilded golden stand in the Liege Lord’s private chamber, where Brone and Braye now tarried. Braye waved a dismissive hand at his second in command. 

“All in good time, Brother Brone. Besides, I believe they still have their use.” 

“Use, my lord?” 

“The spell I cast to begin the final cleansing will require elements of the creatures I want destroyed. The vampire and the hybrid can provide me with those ingredients.” He turned a page and tapped a spell written in ancient Cyrillic. “You must know that any powerful spell requires a counterbalance of elements.” 

“Yes, my lord,” Brone nodded. “Do you mean to use their blood?” 

“Their blood, their flesh, their bones. All boiled down to a bare essence I will add to the casting sequence at precisely the right time! When the spell coalesces, all vampires and lesser magicians will meet their end, and turn into so much running pus! Only the truly gifted will join our circle.” He consulted the spell. “Yes . . . during the waning moon, two evenings from now. We will force the hybrid and the vampire to fast--it will make them weak.” He compiled a list and passed it to Brone. “Give this to our brothers and tell them to prepare the solution. It will take several days for it to reach its full potential, especially for boiling down the vampire’s bones. He’s one of the oldest of his kind.” 

“Yes, my Lord.” Brone departed with the paper and Appius Braye grinned. Once he cast the spell on the whole of the world, he would remain in control of the magical beings it left alive. No more schools for young people with a pittance of ambient magic, no more vampires breeding and bringing more of their filthy ilk into the world, and no more unnatural beings like Quentin Coldwater and Eliot Waugh, the unclean hybrids. Yes, he would control it all, and once the guild discovered the true intent behind his cleansing spell, it would be too late for any of them. 

____________________________________________________________________________

“You’re turning us into  _ what? _ ” 

“Margo, it’s the only way!” Eliot said as his friend gave him a disbelieving stare. They stood at the outskirts of a field that appeared empty, yet had traced the swirling black cloud to this spot. 

“But how do we know they aren’t watching us?” 

“Even a Liege Lord only has so much energy at his disposal. That thing that took Q and Josef wasn’t moving under its own power and that, along with the wards it takes to keep the hall invisible, probably takes a lot out of him. He can’t be some all-seeing eye--he’s human, after all.” 

“But will we still be able to even communicate with each other?” She asked, and Eliot nodded. 

“I’m pretty sure.” 

“Pretty sure . . . El!” 

“I’ve never tried the spell before. I only know of it. We can’t use something as simple as an illusion spell or a glamor because that he will see through and we can’t take that chance. If we do and we fail, then Quentin and Josef are dead and probably us along with him!” 

“Are you sure it’s our only option?” 

“The wards that hide the hall from people don’t work on animals because why would they need to? It saves magical energy, but it’s also going to work to our advantage.” 

Margo folded her arms over her chest and rolled her eyes with a sigh. 

“Fine! But if I forget myself and end up as a snack for some pompous magician’s cat, I am  _ so  _ coming back to haunt you!” 

“That’s a risk I’ll have to take.” He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “Are you ready?” 

“I suppose,” she nodded, and he took her hands and began to chant. A white glow surrounded them both, starting at the crowns of their heads, then it traveled downward. As it did, both magicians began to shrink and change until they were no longer humans but common grey field mice, with long furry tails and white bellies. Margo squeaked, her oil drop eyes bright, and then the communication spell Eliot included kicked in. His voice spoke up in her mind. 

“Look! The hall is right in front of us!” 

Margo skittered around on her paws, marveling at how light and almost hollow this body seemed. The hall loomed before her, impossibly huge and gleaming white. 

“How do we get in?” 

“Follow me.” Eliot scampered forward until he found a ground-floor door with a small gap between the door’s wood and the threshold. He flattened his tiny body and squeezed through, then encouraged Margo to follow as he looked out for humans and cats. While he wasn’t sure if any members of the Sterling Wizard’s Guild kept cats, it was possible, and he had little desire to meet his end in the jaws of one. Margo squeezed through and joined him, her whiskers twitching. 

“How do we find them?” She asked. Eliot rose up on his hind legs and sniffed the air. 

“If we can find the Liege Lord, he’ll lead us to them sooner or later. Look!’ He dashed into a corner as a human passed by, his satin slippers brushing along the tile. “Let’s follow!” 

The two mice pattered along, keeping to corners and hiding along the hems of drapery as the human wound his way down a maze of corridors and several short sets of stairs. They dashed through an open door and crouched behind a large oak chest as the thunderous voices of two men reached them. 

“My Lord, I have delivered the potion ingredients as per your instructions.” 

“Excellent, Brother Brone.” 

“I do have a question, however.” 

“Speak.” 

“You plan to reorder the ways of magic . . . that means more power for the Guild, yes?” 

“Indeed.” 

“And will we, the Order of Ten, receive any of this power?” 

The man sitting at the massive desk frowned. 

“Is more power what you seek, Brother Brone? Is it not enough that you are my second in command, and one of the Order? Do you ask this as a means of perhaps challenging me?” 

“That’s him!” Eliot thought at Margo. “That’s the Liege Lord!” 

“Challenge you? No, my Lord!” 

The man behind the desk stared at Brone for almost thirty seconds before waving him away. 

“Then be on about your business--ensure that our prisoners are well secured.” 

“Yes. Thank you, my Lord.” The man hurried out and Eliot pounced on Margo with mouse-like urgency. 

“We have to follow!” 

They raced along the wall, beneath some drapery, and then to the opposite side of the doorjamb, where they squeezed through and trailed Damion Brone as he descended several long stairways. The two magicians followed easily, using a wooden handrail as their path instead of having to navigate the steep stone steps. Finally, they came to a heavy, windowless iron door. Eliot and Margo squeezed through a crack on the opposite side and found themselves looking up at the impossibly huge figures of their friends, who seemed almost as tall as the tower in which they were trapped. They huddled together, nude and drawn, and Brone unlocked the door to glance in at them. Neither looked up, and Eliot’s whiskers quivered with anger. 

“They’re starving them!” 

“We can’t help them being like this!” Margo replied, and Eliot’s long tail twitched back and forth. 

“This is a one-shot spell, Margo! Once I undo it, I can’t use it again for another thirty days so we have to plan our attack carefully!” Even as he offered this logic, though, he wanted nothing more to transform back to himself and hold Quentin in his arms. “We have to find out the Liege Lord’s plan.” 

“How do we do that?” Margo fretted, and Eliot squeezed back out through the crack he’d used to enter the tower cell. He knew he could offer no comfort to Quentin and Josef this way or even reveal his identity. 

“That spell book we saw in the Liege Lord’s chamber. There has to be some kind of answer in it.” 

“My paws are already killing me!” Margo replied, then gave a squeak of outrage as her mouse body did what most rodents’ do, and with frequency. Her black eyes narrowed at Eliot. “You. So. Owe. Me!” 

“If we live through this, I’ll take you shopping on the Ladies’ Mile.” 

“If we live through this, you’ll take me shopping at the Champs-Elyees!” 

“Margo, have a heart!” 

“I do have a heart, and it’s currently very tiny!” 

“All right, okay! Ye Gods.” If a mouse could roll its tiny eyes, Eliot would have. Margo nipped his tail and they went on their way, back to the Liege Lord’s chamber. The man in the white robes was nowhere in sight and Eliot and Margo climbed the gilded book stand. Fortunately, the book stood open; Eliot wasn’t sure if they could have opened it with their tiny bodies. He balanced himself on the page and ran back and forth, reading the words and the sigils on the ancient pages. 

“Oh Gods,” he thought at Margo. “Margo . . . this isn’t just a cleansing spell. This Liege Lord, he’s going to reorder magic so completely that every creature on earth that uses magic or has any kind of supernatural ability will be under his power! Vampires all over the world will die, and anyone with ambient magic will fall under his power!” 

“There’s more bad news,” Margo thought back as she read the opposite page. “The spell he plans to use includes vampire flesh . . . and the flesh and fluids of a magician.” 

“Josef and Q!” Eliot’s tail lashed. Margo curled hers around her body in anxiety. 

“The Liege Lord isn’t just going to reorder magic. He’s going to control it completely and use Josef and Quentin to do it.”


	17. 17

Quentin came to through a haze of hunger that made him want to gnaw into his own wrist. Josef leaned against him, his skin pale and turning a light yellow hue that even touched his corneas. Quentin turned his head. 

“Josef . . .” 

“Still . . . still here, lad,” he managed to nod. 

“This can’t be their grand plan. To bring us here, only to starve us? It doesn’t make sense.” 

“It’s not.” Josef shook his head. “They want us weak so we can’t fight them. The weaker we are, the more vulnerable we are.” 

“But for what?” Quentin asked, then closed his eyes as Josef simply shook his head. He curled up against Josef, taking refuge in his lean but taller form. 

_ El . . . where are you? _ He asked silently. Had this Appius Braye killed him and Margo after he and Josef were captured? Were they laying dead on the riverbank, where Eliot’s corpse would burn to ash in the daylight? Quentin put his hands over his eyes, the images too clear and too horrible for him to bear. Josef managed to get an arm around him. 

“Don’t be afraid, Quentin. We vampires all live on borrowed time--hunted and hated as we are, most of us suspect death is no further away than around the next corner.” 

“But I am afraid,” Quentin murmured. “Not so much for myself--for Eliot and for Margo. I’m so afraid they’re dead, Josef, and that it would be my fault because I told them to meet us at that spot by the river. I told them to come!” 

“You couldn’t have known it was a trap,” Josef reasoned, his voice cracking with weakness. “That old man who drew us the map . . . he was telling us the truth, but Braye wanted us to come look for him. Maybe he knew we would instead of trying to flee. You didn’t put Eliot and Margo in danger on purpose, lad. Besides, they may still be alive and trying to find us.” 

“I want to believe that,” Quentin murmured, then closed his eyes. “I’m so hungry.” 

“I know. I saw some mice squeeze their way in here earlier . . . if I’d had the strength, I would have grabbed them up. Rodent blood is thin and a mouse is barely a mouthful, but it would have been something.” He stroked a hand through Quentin’s hair. “Just try to rest as best you can--we’ll know our fate soon enough.” 

____________________________________________________________________________

Eliot jerked awake from an uneasy doze and a dream where the Liege Lord commanded great swirling clouds of magic that stripped Quentin’s and Josef’s writhing bodies of their flesh and turned their bones to ashes. Below his towering figure was a massive, bubbling cauldron, something out of a child’s fairy tale or that Shakespeare play--which had it been? Quentin would know . . . 

He looked down at himself and remembered that he’d reversed the transformation spell after he and Margo had found something of a bolthole to hide in. It wasn’t much bigger than a broom closet and held stacks of robes, slippers, and a shelf that held an array of odds and ends like a few cracked teacups, a roll of muslin, some blank parchment with the edges cracked and frayed, and a small wooden box full of incense. Margo lay curled up on the stone floor, her head in his lap, and he smiled and stroked her hair. How brave she’d been, especially in the face of being so tiny, and she’d done it for him. Oh, she loved Q, Eliot knew it, and she’d warmed toward Josef but deep down, he knew she might not have allowed anyone else to turn her into a rodent. 

“Margo,” he murmured, and her eyes fluttered open. 

“Mmmh?” She questioned as she sat up, and he put a finger to his lips. She nodded. 

“How long was I asleep?” She whispered, and Eliot shook his head. 

“I’m not sure. I dozed myself after I broke the transformation spell. Are you all right? How do you feel?” 

“I’m fine,” she nodded and then held up a hand as Eliot opened his mouth. “Please don’t talk about it. And don’t think I’m going to forget your promise!” She whispered, but in a fierce tone. Eliot gave her his most charming smile. 

“I wouldn’t dream of it, love,” he said, then wiped a hand over his face. Margo watched him. 

“El . . .” 

“I’m all right.” 

“Like hell you are. That spell took a lot out of you. Where’s your flask?” 

“It’s empty,” he admitted. Her dark eyes widened. 

“But--” 

“I know. But I’ll go for as long as I can if we can still help Q and Josef.” 

“We won’t be able to, not if you don’t have your magical blood.” She unbuttoned her blouse nearly to mid-chest and shook back her long hair. All at once, Eliot understood. 

“No! Margo--no! I refuse!” 

“You can’t refuse. If you do then we’re all dead and everyone with magic becomes enslaved by that Liege Lord bastard! We can’t let that happen!” 

“I can’t. I can’t hurt you,” Eliot said, even as the lack of magical blood made him feel weak and dizzy. 

“Oh, for the love of--” Margo reached up and clawed her own neck until a thin line of blood appeared. She grabbed Eliot by the collar of his shirt and pulled his face to it, knowing the taste and scent would make the decision for him. Eliot struggled for a moment and then he gave a low growl as he slipped his fangs into her neck to drink. Margo jerked but held a hand to the back of his neck. The draining sensation made her sense of self-preservation spike but she mentally kicked it to the curb, knowing that Eliot would stop when she needed him to. Once the brief spate of anxiety passed she felt warm streams of pleasure course through her, from her neck to her pelvis, and she tipped her head back. After a moment Eliot pulled back, his eyes flashing silver-blue before fading back to their usual bright amber, a color that many girls at Brakebills envied. 

“Why did you do that?” He asked in a shaky tone, though his color was already much improved. Margo rolled her eyes. 

“Are you really that much of a fool? Because you were going to die! Did you really think I was going to sit here with a body full of perfectly good magical blood and let that happen?” 

“But--” Eliot began, and Margo cupped his face with both hands. 

“I had what you needed. I offered it. You took it. That’s the end. Are we clear?” She asked, and Eliot closed his eyes a moment and nodded. 

“I understand. And I suppose I wouldn’t be much good to any of us dead. Undead, dead . . .” He smiled as Margo gave him a long-suffering stare. “I know. You hate me.” 

“That’s the hell of it, Eliot Waugh,” Margo said as she stroked his face before pulling back. “I love you.” Eliot’s mouth opened slightly at that, but she was already pressing on. “So, what now? “We know the Liege Lord is going to use Q and Josef to make this spell, but what can we do to stop it?” 

Eliot opened his mouth to reply when a gong sounded out from somewhere in the hall. It rang eleven times and Eliot felt a cold finger of dread press into his spine. 

“Whatever we do, we do it now,” he said to Margo. “Because I think the ritual just started.” 

____________________________________________________________________________

The Order of the Ten came for Josef and Quentin carrying silver chains to bind their hands before marching them out of the tower prison and down a long flight of stairs, deep into the bowels of the hall. Each of them stumbled along, chained to each other, their hands secured behind their backs. They seemed to descend for many minutes, their bare feet slapping on the stones as they staggered along, some of the Order in front, others in back. At the bottom of the massive set of stairs, Appius Braye and Damion Brone waited. Braye wore his white robes, but the sigils on this set flared red and silver. He stared at the two vampires and then nodded to Damion. 

“Prepare them,” he said, and Damion grasped the chain that linked them together, using it to drag them over to a large silver scaffolding that rested on the ground. It was over ten feet high and designed in a T shape. Quentin saw the glint of silver and drew back, his nostrils flaring like a frightened colt. 

“No. No, please!” He begged as Damion secured Quentin’s hands over his head on one side of the T and Josef’s on the other. Quentin cried out in pain as his hands made contact with the silver and left wide blistering burns on each. Josef endured the same, pressing his lips together. Braye came to stand over them. 

“Hybrid filth . . . vampire offal!” He said as he toed each in the ribs. “You are about to witness an example of true magical power. And when it’s finished, so shall you be--you, and all who are like you!” He smiled down at Josef. “You will soon be in whatever hell the universe has in store for you. Perhaps you will see your dead lover there!” 

“You . . . aren’t fit to speak his name!” Josef replied, even as wisps of smoke rose from his hands where it touched the silver post. Braye crouched down. 

“Do you think he spoke yours as he died? Or did he curse it, knowing it was you who brought about his death? You, who brought attention to a vile creature masquerading as a human? Tell me . . . when you found his headless corpse on the village road, did you search for the head right away, or did you bury the body before the wolves could finish what the bounty hunter started when he cut Matis’ undead heart from his chest?” 

“Bastard!” Josef cried, struggling until the chains left welts on his wrists. 

“Josef, don’t!” Quentin pleaded, seeing agony under the rage in Josef’s eyes as he turned his head. Braye rounded the T and fetched a forceful kick to Quentin’s ribs. 

“Do you even feel pain, you filthy creature?” He kicked Quentin again. “Or is your undead body as unfeeling as a corpse? Yet you pretend to be human . . . you and that other hybrid, the one who made you! Oh yes,” Braye grinned as he saw a flicker in Quentin’s eyes. “He’s dead, you know. He and that witch who trails him everywhere.” 

“Liar!” Quentin cried. “I would know if they were! You--you hateful son of a bitch!” 

Braye kicked Quentin in the jaw, stunning him, and stalked back to his second in command. 

“Set up the scaffolding. It will take me some time to begin the ritual that will create the cauldron.” 

Brone bowed and motioned for the others of the Order to help raise the silver scaffold. They pulled it erect with thick ropes and chanted a spell that drove the base deep into the ground. Quentin and Josef now dangled far above the ground by their wrists, naked and writhing as they hung from the silver chains. 

_ Oh God, it hurts _ , Quentin thought as the chains left deep grooves in his skin.  _ Eliot please, please where are you?  _

____________________________________________________________________________

Having left their bolthole, Eliot and Margo crept along a hallway as they followed the Order at a safe distance. 

“How do we know they won’t sense us?” Margo whispered as they edged along the wall. 

“All of their focus is on this spell. Gods, those fools, they have no idea what Braye has planned!” He said as they came to the massive staircase. Chains rattled in the distance and Eliot stumbled suddenly, baring his fangs in pain. If not for Margo’s quick, steadying reaction, he might have tumbled down the long flight of stone steps. 

“Eliot!” She whispered. “What is it?” 

Eliot scowled and rubbed his wrists, where pain had flared up like he’d thrust them into a roaring fire. 

“Quentin,” he whispered back, flinching. “I’m close enough to him to feel our bond--” Eliot gritted his teeth. “He’s in pain.” 

Margo kept a hand on his arm. 

“I didn’t let you turn me into a rodent for us to fail now! Hang on, El!” 

Eliot nodded and drew strength from that well deep inside him, the one he’d drawn from when Quentin was dying back at Brakebills and when he’d gone missing from the village. They descended the stairs one by one, Eliot fighting back the pain that hummed through his and Quentin’s bond like a sizzling line of fire. They were nearly halfway down when Quentin cried out in what sounded like agony. Eliot went pale and silver-blue light rose in his eyes. Margo tightened his hold on her arm. 

“All we have now is the element of surprise! You can’t go racing down there because if you do, it will give Braye the upper hand!” 

“They’re hurting him,” Eliot said through gritted teeth. “I can feel it, Margo, it’s silver, it’s burning him!” 

“We’re almost to the bottom, El, and when we get there, we can see what we’re dealing with! Do you understand? We have to keep going!” 

Eliot nodded and focused on his feet as they took step after step, the air growing moist and hot. The staircase curved slightly as they reached the end and Margo paused, squeezing Eliot’s arm. 

“Gods! Do you feel that?” She asked. Magic hung in the air, thick, dank, and sulfurous. It was like a stinking blanket. Eliot peered around the corner and she ducked under his arm to see, and the sight that greeted them made them both smother a gasp of shock and anger. 

Quentin and Josef hung from a massive T-shaped silver scaffolding, smoke rising from their chained wrists as their naked bodies kicked and writhed. Braye and the Order stood in a circle below them, chanting and swaying like cobras. As the chanting continued, a fissure opened up in the earth directly below the scaffolding and began to fill with an angry red fluid, streaked with black like fresh molten lava. These streaks bubbled and reached out of the natural cauldron like tentacles, snaking upward toward Quentin and Josef. Margo put a hand to her mouth, her stomach twisting. Eliot bent double but his face was a study in fury. As the Order chanted, led by an exalted-looking Braye, the cauldron grew wider and began to smoke and bubble. The acrid smell it gave off smelled like boiled human waste, ozone, and burnt tar. 

“Bonaparate’s  _ balls _ !” Margo swore in a fierce whisper. “Eliot, what are we going to do?” 

Eliot watched as his lover and his friend squirmed and kicked above the hellish pit Braye and the Order had raised with their spell. He knew when the magic reached its apex, Braye would cast a spell and release Quentin and Josef from the scaffolding, where they would drop into the pit. They were the two final ingredients in the Liege Lord’s terrible spell and once it was complete, he would control the entirety of magic. 

_ All the world’s vampires, dead, _ Eliot thought.  _ Magical people like Margo held in thrall, their magic no longer theirs at all, no more young people discovering their ambient magic, everything about them that’s unique in the control of one man who thinks he deserves the power!  _ He watched the cauldron bubble and hiss and his own magic, special in itself because of its natural elements, hummed in his bones in response. All at once, the answer stood out as clearly as a written lesson on a blackboard at Brakebills. 

_ Magic--any magic--is about balance and counterbalance. Whatever you add or subtract to one side, you must add or subtract to the other. If an unexpected ingredient or dropped syllable made its way into the spell-- _

“It collapses,” Eliot murmured, and Margo looked up at him. 

“El?” She asked, and Eliot turned to her. 

“Margo . . . I need you to trust me one last time.” 

“What?” Her face twisted in anger and under that, fear. “What are you talking about, one last time?” 

He took her hands, squeezed them, then kissed her cheek. 

“No matter what happens, try to get to Quentin and Josef. Toss off battle bombs if you have to. And incidentally, I love you too.” He let go of her hands, turned, and charged down the remainder of the stairs and into the chamber. Margo grabbed for him but missed, cursing in every language she knew as she ran after him. She caught a glimpse of Braye’s face, his concentration broken and then twisting in fury as he caught sight of them. Eliot leaped with nearly all his strength, clung to the base of the silver scaffolding, and cried out with both pain and triumph as he sent forth every ounce of telekinetic power he possessed. Braye roared and pulled a silver dagger from his cloak as the base of the scaffolding cracked, then crumbled. Eliot groaned in pain as he force-pushed it backward. It toppled, taking Quentin and Josef with it. Braye leapt at him at the same time, burying the knife in Eliot’s back, below the right shoulder. Eliot shouted in pain and anger and turned on the man, fangs bared, meaning to rip his throat out. They grappled with each other and Braye tried to reach around the taller man to shove the knife deeper into his body. Margo charged in, firing battle bombs at the remaining Order and some of them flew up and into the bubbling cauldron, adding further imbalance to the spell. Once the path was clear she ran to Josef and Quentin. Both were dazed and weak but conscious, and she melted the chains that bound their hands to the posts. Quentin sat up and Margo hugged him. She took his hand, then Josef’s. 

“That spell is going to make this entire place go up in flames! We have to get out of here.” She tugged them to their feet and Quentin staggered toward Eliot as he and Braye struggled with each other, reddish-orange magic flowing from the Liege Lord’s fingertips, Eliot’s eyes blazing silver-blue, his fangs flashing. As Quentin watched, horrified, magician and vampire toppled over the edge and into the boiling, seething pit. 


	18. 18

_ “ELIOT!!”  _

Quentin’s agonized scream rose over the sound of the cauldron pit and of the remaining members of the Order fleeing in panic. He crawled to the edge of the pit, sobbing, and Margo and Josef seized his arms. 

“Quentin, no!” Margo said, her voice thin with disbelief, impotent rage, and grief. “Q, stop, he saved you, he saved us all but he’d want us to get out! There’s nothing you can do!” 

Quentin shook them both off, screaming in rage and grief, as he crawled to the edge of the pit. As he looked down into the boiling mass, disbelief mixed with a kind of terror as he saw Eliot, clinging to one of the tentacle-like things as it thrashed and wriggled, the imbalance in the spell making it turn a pale grey-green. Braye’s knife protruded from his back. Braye himself hung from Eliot’s legs, clutching them, trying to use the tall vampire like a ladder to free himself from the pit. Blood poured down the back of Eliot’s shirt in a freshet. 

“Josef! Margo! Hold my ankles!” Quentin looked over his shoulder. Margo half-dove to the ground, grabbing Quentin’s ankles. Looking weak and ill yet determined, Josef grabbed Margo’s as well and they made a living rope. Quentin edged over the side of the pit, just past his nipples, and stretched out a hand to Eliot. Eliot looked up at him, his face paler than usual. 

“Q . . . get . . . out of here,” he managed, and Quentin shook his head. 

“Not without you! Come on, grab my hand! Reach for it! Eliot! I said reach, please!” He begged. “If you let go, I’m coming right in after you!” 

Eliot let go of the writhing tentacle and reached, his shoulder throbbing from the silver dagger buried deep into his flesh. He kicked, trying to dislodge Braye, and Margo watched. 

“Drag him up if you have to!” She said to Quentin, who struggled to pull his companion, sire, and the other half of his heart, up and over the edge of the pit. As they dragged Eliot over to safe ground, Braye clawed his way free as well and tried to yank the knife from Eliot’s back to stab him again. Josef rolled to crouch and then pounced, leaping on top of him. Even weak, his vampire strength overpowered the human magician. He grabbed the wrist holding the knife and crushed it, watching in fevered satisfaction as the bones there snapped. Braye howled and the knife fell to the ground. Josef kicked it into the pit and bared his fangs as he pinned Braye to the ground. 

“For my Matis, you murderous bastard!” He snarled, and his head darted forward. Braye gave a pained scream that ended in a blood-filled gurgle as Josef tore his throat out and spit the decimated flesh aside. Blood poured out of the jagged hole with each beat of the man’s heart, and after a moment, it beat no longer. The chamber began to shake and Quentin called out to his friend. 

“Josef! We have to get out of here, help us, please!” 

Josef rose, spat on the dying magician, then turned to his friends. Quentin and Margo supported Eliot between them. Fissures appeared in the floor like veins rising to the surface of the skin and Josef led them to the staircase. 

“Margo! Can you make an escape portal?” He called over the din. 

“The magic here is too unstable! Q, do you have anything left in you?” She asked, pausing long enough to take his hand. Quentin gave a weary nod as they made a semicircle with Eliot and Josef inside. 

“Try,” he said. “I’ll try.”

Margo nodded and squeezed his hand as they both began to chant. A small, wavering portal opened nearby even as the stairs began to crumble, blocking their only other means of escape. Margo all but dragged Eliot through, ducking her head. 

“It’s not going to last!” She shouted. “Come on!” 

Quentin grabbed Josef’s hand, yanking him through as the magic collapsed. They tumbled onto the side of the road near the Bloody Lion and Quentin glanced up as, in the near distance, the Hall of the Sterling Wizard’s Guild appeared as its wards failed. The tall spires began to sink from sight as the earth opened up in a massive zig-zagging crack and swallowed the building whole. Fire spurted from the hole and then nothing remained but smoke and the distant sound of rubble crashing deep into the earth. Margo knelt by Eliot, who laid on his side, his limbs twitching. 

“The knife,” Quentin said. “Margo, you have to pull it out.” 

“Won’t that cause more bleeding?” She asked, and Quentin nodded. 

“Maybe so but the silver blade will do a hell of a lot more damage if it stays in! Pull it out!” 

“Oh Gods,” she groaned as she wrapped her fingers around the handle. “El honey, I’m so sorry--” She yanked it from his flesh and Eliot gave a wavering cry. Blood oozed from the wound and Margo used the knife to rip a slit on her blouse before tearing a piece of fabric free. She pressed it to the wound and the action made Quentin remember that he and Josef were still naked. 

_ Well, so be it _ , he thought in an exhausted sort of way. They had more pressing matters. 

“He needs blood,” Quentin said. “We all do.” 

“Where am I supposed to get it?” She fretted, and a shadow fell over her. She looked up, trembling with shock and exhaustion, to see Phineas standing there. 

“Greetings, Miss,” he gave her a courtly bow. “Perhaps I can be of service.” 

____________________________________________________________________________

Once they helped Eliot up the back steps to their rooms at the Bloody Lion, Phineas produced four large bottles of fresh, warm blood. Quentin, who had thrown on a linen nightshirt that hung to his knees, filled a cup and took it to Eliot, holding the rim to his lips. 

“El . . . here, drink. Come on, my dearest heart, please. It’ll help you.” 

Eliot lifted his eyes to Quentin’s. 

“Thought I’d failed you,” he murmured, and Quentin stroked his face. 

“Never. Never, Eliot. Please, drink some of this.” 

Eliot sipped, rested, sipped again. Quentin stroked his hair. 

“That’s good.” He took a few sips himself. Josef sat on the nearby bed, wrapped in a blanket and sipping from his own mug. Phineas also brought a basket of fruits and cheeses and a bottle of sparkling grape juice for Margo, which she dug into once she saw Eliot drink. 

“Are you sure you’re not a magician?” Quentin asked Phineas, who gave Quentin an almost fatherly smile as he prepared an outfit for Josef from the pack of supplies he’d brought. 

“Quite sure, young master Quentin. However, just as I served Matis, I now serve Josef Konstantin, and a good servant simply knows what his master needs. After a time, when none of you returned to Vilnius, I felt you might need some assistance. Master Josef sent me a message concerning your whereabouts. It seems I arrived just in time.” 

“You’re a damned life saver!” Margo nodded as she munched on an apple. 

“Phineas, do you know anything about silver wounds?” Quentin asked as he dabbed at the swollen, dark slit on Eliot’s back. “We removed the knife but it doesn’t seem to be healing.” 

“Powdered amethyst,” Phineas replied. “When your companion is strong enough to travel by train, we can return to Vilinis where I can treat him.” 

Quentin climbed up next to Eliot and set his companion’s head in his lap. 

“I think a few days’ rest would do us all a world of good,” he nodded. 

____________________________________________________________________________

The weary group traveled back to Vilnius by train after a three-day stay at the Bloody Lion. Eliot, still pale, drawn, and ill, said little as they boarded the evening train. He walked with the aid of a cane Quentin bought him in Medias before they’d departed. The train carried only a handful of passengers and as Eliot stared out the window at the wintery landscape, Quentin put a hand over his. 

“Eliot, are you all right?” He asked. Eliot glanced away from the window. 

“Yes, love,” he replied. “Just a bit worn out I suppose.” He turned toward Quentin to face him fully. “When I knocked that scaffolding down . . . I didn’t know if my telekinesis would obey. It’s more predictable now than it was before I was a vampire, but even now, I don’t always feel in control. Sometimes it’s like a horse that’s only tame about three times out of four. You can never trust that fourth time.” He slid his fingers in between Quentin’s. “And when I saw you hanging there, and knowing what was about to happen, I was sick with terror. It was worse than when you were ill--back when I turned you.” 

“Why?” Quentin asked. 

“Because I wouldn’t have failed just you. If Braye had succeeded in his plan, all of our kind would be dead and all the magicians of the world under that bastard’s control. He was making an enormous grab for power, If I’d failed, I would have died knowing I lost you--all of you.” 

“But you didn’t fail.” Quentin smiled up at him. “You were incredibly brave.” 

Eliot gave a weak chuckle. 

“I was more desperate than brave,” he said. “Did I tell you that I used a transformation spell on myself and Margo so we could find a way into the Hall?” 

“No.” 

“Oh, mm-hmm!” He nodded. “I turned us into mice.” 

“Mice!” Quentin sat up a bit. “Did you find a way into that cell Josef and I were in?” 

“Yes, we followed a few of the Order there.” 

“El!” Quentin began to laugh. “Ye Gods, Josef saw you! He talked about seeing mice in the cell and how he would have grabbed them for food if he hadn’t been so weak!” 

Eliot blinked at him before bursting into soft laughter. It hurt his back but he made no attempt to quell it. 

“Now, wouldn’t that have been the ultimate irony!” He glanced across the aisle, where Josef sat resting his eyes with Margo asleep beside him. “You’ll have to tell them both when we get back to Vilnius.” 

“El . . . I’ve been thinking.”

“About what, my  _ petite coeur _ ?” 

“About how we can’t leave Josef in Lithuania. About how lonely he would be.” 

“I think he’s used to taking care of himself.” 

“I think that’s an act.” Quentin looked up at him. “That night . . . you know, when we--” 

“Yes, I remember.” 

“I think it was the first time in a long while that he made a connection with anyone. The way he felt about Matis--he wouldn’t have accepted our offer that might if he only wanted to live with his former companion’s memory.” 

“So what are you suggesting?” Eliot asked. 

“I want him to come home with us to France. He can even bring Phineas alone. I like the old guy.” 

“And if he refuses?” 

Quentin lifted a shoulder. 

“We can’t force him. But I want to make the offer. You know? I don’t think we could have done what we did without him.” 

“Is that the only reason?” Eliot asked, and Quentin smiled and squeezed Eliot’s hand. 

“Eliot Waugh, you know I love you like I love no other, in my past, now, and in my future. You are my heart. But perhaps we each have room in our lives for Josef as well. Even Margo has warmed to him, and you know how difficult she can be with people! Please . . . can’t we at least ask him?” 

Eliot smiled and touched Quentin’s face. 

“You know I can’t refuse you,” he murmured. “And besides, I have to admit, I like the bastard.” He chuckled. “As strange as that sounds, seeing as how we met, but he took care of you when Braye had you both prisoner and he faced all of that bravely.” 

“He did,” Quentin smiled. “So we’ll ask him?” 

“Let us get back to Vilnius, love, and then we’ll talk to him.” 

__________________________________________________________________________

The group reached Josef’s home without incident, where Phineas put Eliot on bed rest and treated his silver wound with powdered amethyst. The others rested as well, and food was plentiful for all. Each of them grew stronger and more like themselves with each passing day, and although Quentin, Eliot, and Josef would bear scars from the silver Braye had used, the wounds healed and faded. 

One evening, the group all met together in Josef’s library for drinks. Outside, a thick winter snow fell, blanketing the country with an opalescent veil of white. Josef stared into the fire, an untouched glass of warm blood in one hand. Margo drank wine almost as dark as what her companions enjoyed, but talk waned as the moon rose behind the thick, snow-filled clouds. 

“Josef?” Quentin spoke up after a time, and the older vampire barely glanced from the fire. 

“Hmm?” 

“I’d like to ask you something. That is, uhm . . . we would. Myself and Eliot and Margo.” 

Of course, go on?” 

“Well . . . with this whole thing being over now, we’ll need to go home to Paris soon. Margo has her fashion line to work on for the spring so the clothing is ready and in stores by March, and I have my bookshop to run.” Quentin glanced at the others and Eliot nodded, encouraging him. “We . . . we wondered if you wouldn’t like to come with us. Live with us.” 

Josef blinked and turned his attention away from the fire to state at Quentin a moment. 

“Move to Paris? Live with you?” He repeated, and Quentin nodded. 

“We--well, that is . . .” 

“We’re all fond of you, Konstantin,” Eliot broke in. “That’s what Q is trying to tell you. We’re all fond of you, and we want you with us.” 

“You’re serious.” 

“Of course we’re serious!” Quentin nodded. “After all we’ve survived together, can it really be that surprising?” 

“You wouldn’t ask me that, lad, if you understood how--” Josef cut himself off and drained a good portion of his glass. Quentin sat up from where he’d been laying by the fire, his head in Eliot’s lap. 

“If you want me to understand something, then explain it.” 

“That in itself isn’t easy,” Josef said. “Because when you say you want me with you, I assume you mean in every way possible.” 

“That is what we mean,” Quentin smiled as he reached up and touched Josef’s hand. 

“Before I give you an answer, I feel that I must tell you something, then. I need to tell you the story of how I became a vampire.” He drained his glass and set it aside. 

_ Ireland, 1798 _

Josef William MacCraith, the youngest son of William and Aileen MaCraith, woke to the smell of porridge cooking over the fire and his infant sister, Ciara, crying in her cot. He pulled on his breeches and linen shirt before washing up with the bowl of water and lump of soap his mother had left him before wetting and smoothing his ginger-brown hair. He came out of his sleeping space at the back of the cottage and came into the main room, where the hearth crackled and warmed the small home. Josef went to the iron pot that hung there and spooned some porridge into a wooden bowl. His mother glanced over her shoulder as she lifted the baby from the cot. 

“Well, the son rises!” She smiled. Her reddish-brown hair, done up in a braid, gleamed in the sunlight coming in through the cottage windows. 

“G’morning, mum,” Josef greeted her as he sat down with his porridge. His twin sisters, Bridget and Brianna, sat on the other side of the fire, playing pat-a-cake. They were eight years his junior and at nineteen, Josef was the only male at home, as his father was off with other men from the village, fighting the British. Josef had wanted very much to join them but his father, who was a relatively successful horse breeder, had insisted he run the farm in his absence and provide for his mother and the younger children. 

Josef reflected on his work for the day as he ate his porridge. Three colts needed halter training, along with the daily watering, feeding, and mucking old hay from the barn stalls. He hoped to have time for a ride on his own black gelding, Duffy, a gift from his father when he’d turned eighteen. 

“I’ll need some water from the well, Josef,” his mother said, breaking into his thoughts. “And can you gather the eggs for me before you tend the horses?” 

“Yes, mum,” he nodded, and she kissed the top of his head. Thinking himself too old for such things, he merely blushed a bit and cleared his throat. The twins giggled and he eyed them. 

“Mind your ma,” he said to them. “And help her with the bairn.” With that, he stepped outside into the rainy spring morning. It raised a fog that nearly hid the chicken coop from view and as he turned toward it, a woman came up the path, sobbing and screaming. 

“All’s lost on Vinegar Hill!” She cried. “Our men are slain! Hide yourselves!” 

As the woman came out of the mist, Josef recognized her as Mrs. McLiam, a friend of his mother’s who lived about a quarter-mile down the road. 

“Mrs. McLiam?” He asked, stepping closer to the road, and she turned toward him, her blue eyes bulging, wet circles underneath making her look haggard. She stumbled toward him. 

“Our men . . . all dead! They’re coming!” She cried, and Josef looked up as the sound of many hoofbeats approached. British soldiers came out of the mist and before Josef could draw another breath, one of them struck his neighbor down with a saber, nearly decapitating her. Josef turned back toward the house, calling for his mother and siblings to hide, and hoofbeats rose up behind him. Something hard struck him in the back of the head and bright points of light bloomed in his vision before he stumbled to his knees, momentarily blinded. A British soldier swung off his horse and dragged Josef back onto his feet. He blinked, blood running into his right eye as other soldiers surrounded his family home. The man in charge of the regiment, tall with wavy salt-and-pepper hair, stared down at him. 

“Who’s inside?” He demanded, and the cottage door swung open. His mother charged the soldiers with a sword that belonged to his father, and one of the soldiers laughed and shot her in the chest. She fell to the ground and Josef screamed. Inside, the baby and his sisters began to cry. The leader of the regiment nodded to his soldiers. 

“Burn it. Take any horses you find in the barn. We’ll take this one to the docks. He should be worth a pound or two.” 

The soldiers lit torches taken from their supplies and lit the ends before tossing them through the cottage windows. One of them dragged Aileen’s dying body through the front door and then barred it from the outside as others tossed lit torches onto the roof. Josef stumbled toward the house as flames consumed it and he heard his family screaming as they burned. The regiment commander struck him on the head with his revolver and darkness dropped a terrible veil over Josef’s mind. 

He awoke much later in chains, in a dank, dark, and smelly place that rocked and bobbed beneath him. He sat on damp, moldy straw that poked him in a dozen places, as he’d been stripped and dressed in a ragged canvas shirt that barely reached his knees. Dried blood kept his right eye glued shut. 

_ Where . . . _

Then it came back to him in flashes, images so clear they might have been happening right in front of him: his neighbor falling under a razor-sharp saber, her throat opened, the British soldier laughing as he shot Josef’s mother, the smell of roasting flesh as his sisters screamed, trapped in their burning cottage. 

“Oh Christ,” Josef whispered as he tried to bring his hands to his eyes, but the manacles on his wrists prevented it. “Bloody Christ . . . all dead! All dead.” He hung his head and began to sob. He’d failed them all-- especially his father, now dead in battle, his corpse lying somewhere among his neighbors on the battleground just outside the village. He;d been responsible for them all, but now they were dead and he was . . . 

Where? 

A door opened somewhere nearby, allowing weak daylight to spill into the hold. Two men came down the short flight of steps, carrying buckets and handfuls of smut-covered rags. They wore an array of mismatched clothing, tall boots, wide-brimmed hats, and carried swords tucked into their belts. 

“Oy!” One said to the other. “He’s awake, he is! Looks like that knock on the ‘ead didn’t kill’im after all!” 

The other grunted and set the buckets down. 

“Cap’n said cleaned up, he’d fetch some good coin on the Bombay trade.” He dipped one of the rags into the buckets and Josef groaned as he scrubbed the dried blood from his face. He managed to open that eye and the two sailors came into focus. They were older than him, perhaps in their late twenties, with the dark complexions and bad teeth of a life at sea. The one with the British working-class accent cupped Josef’s chin and lifted his head. 

"Please,” Josef muttered, his head still aching. “Please, set me free.” 

“Set ye free?” The sailor laughed. “We’re on the ocean, my fine boy! Bound for Bombay!” 

“Siggs, you talk too much,” the other said. He had a low, almost grunting speech with an accent Josef couldn’t place. It was broad and flat. Siggs snorted and scrubbed a wet rag through Josef’s bloody hair and then squeezed the pinkish water out onto the floor. 

“Phah,” Siggs dismissed the other man. “Who’s he gonna tell, the rats?” He poked at a lump on Josef’s head. “Those soldiers gave ‘im quite a goose egg!” 

“That’s for the boys at the Bombay Clearing House to worry over.” The other man dropped some hard crackers into Josef’s lap and loosened his chains just enough so he could reach them. Siggs set down a wooden mug filled with a ladle of tepid water. “Eat and drink while you can, boy! Who’s to say what the trade has in store for you!” 

The two men left a few moments later. Josef drank the water, although it tasted dank and a bit like dirt. He ate one or two of the stale crackers and threw the rest in the corner, where the ship’s rats came out to sample them. The biggest of these rodents was at least a foot long not counting the scaly tail, which was at least as long as its loathsome body. They seemed to watch him as carefully as he watched them and remembered his mother’s stories about rats feeding on humans on farms stricken with poverty. 

“Mum,” Josef muttered, tears coming to his eyes. He tried to bring his hands together in prayer, but the chains were too short. Instead, he closed his eyes. 

“Our Father,” he whispered. “Look after the departed souls of my father William, my mother Aileen, my sisters, Bridget, Brianna, and baby Ciara. Guide them safely into your loving arms and deliver me from this evil, amen.” 

The rats squeaked from the dark corners of the hold, as if in amusement, and Josef slept again, curling up on his side in the damp straw. 


	19. 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *WARNING* This chapter contains non-con content. Please be advised!

When Josef next awoke, the ship’s hold wore a cloak of absolute darkness. He heard the squeaking of the rats, and they sounded closer than before. He kicked his feet and rattled the chains, letting them know he was no corpse for them to feed upon. They retreated (or so he guessed) and then the hold’s door banged open. Josef froze as many booted feet descended the steps and the sound of men’s breathing surrounded him. 

“The cap won’t be happy if we tear him up,” one male said, and another scoffed. 

“So he gets to the Bombay clearing house with a bleedin’ arse, who’s gonna know? We’ll stuff a rag down there, it’ll be the problem of whoever buys him!” 

Josef turned his head from one side to the other as the voices spoke, and then strong arms hauled him to his feet and undid his manacles. He struggled, but then those same strong arms took him to the floor, on his belly. The moldy smell of the straw assaulted his nostrils and he squirmed, but two more men pinned him and shoved his knees up under him. The action brought a terrible, blinding realization to Josef’s mind and he screamed wordlessly. One of the men stuffed a rag in his mouth until Josef nearly choked on it and his eyes rolled in the dark like an animal captured and brought to slaughter. He caught a whiff of lard, his mind making a cross-connection to his mother’s kitchen when she made fresh sausages. Two slick fingers touched him a moment later, touched him in a way he’d never imagined, and then--oh God, oh  _ God _ \--

The men lined up behind him and one by one, took what they wanted. There were few pauses, even when one finished and another stepped up to take his place. Despite the lard, he began to bleed; only a trickle at first and then a more serious flow as one man after the other tore him open. He wept, the sound muffled by the rag. At one point someone yanked the filthy thing from his mouth and replaced it with something large and dripping. He tried to pull away but a hand twisted into his hair and made him take it. Josef prayed to himself in a desperate plea that he might join his family in death rather than live with whatever this brought in the aftermath.

After each man had their turn they began again, forcing Josef to fellate them until they grew excited enough to take him again. Blood flowed down Josef’s thighs in dark rivulets and the sailors filled his mouth until he felt like his jaw might snap. Fluid dripped off his chin. 

_ Please! Please God in heaven, please let me die!  _

As one of the men shoved his way into Josef’s trembling form, the wall on the far side of the hold seemed to explode inward. The sailors began to shout as the frigid Atlantic water flowed in, and then they were screaming. Josef fell onto his right side, breathing in shallow hitches, as strange tearing, rending sounds filled the space. Water flowed around his legs, so cold that it seemed to burn his skin. 

_ Good _ , he thought in a thin, almost dreamy way.  _ Good, drown. End it _ . 

The hold fell silent then, but something loomed over Josef, something like a shadow but darker, darker even than the hold itself. Josef’s lips moved and then he was lifted to his feet and held in a powerful, all-encompassing embrace. Something nuzzled his neck and then sharp teeth--no,  _ fangs- _ -sunk into his neck, directly into the jugular. He twitched and a strange draining sensation began. Josef gave a weak whimper as the sound of his own pulse began to fade in his own ears. Something warm and wet struck Josef’s lips a moment later and he moaned, thinking it was more of the same that he’d endured but no, this was dark and rich and slightly metallic, and Josef found that he wanted it. He licked his lips and drank more, his body shaking with death spasms as whatever had him in its embrace carried him up the hold steps and laid him down on the deck of the ship. 

Darkness took Josef again, but for a briefer time, and when he opened his eyes again, the night was like day to his eyes and his body, although healed of the trauma he’d endured, burned with hunger. Over the next few days as the ship limped along, far off course, Josef fed on the remaining sailors, from the lowest deck swabber to the captain himself. Eventually, the ship drifted into the Baltic Sea and when it ran aground on the Lithuanian shore, Josef made his way onto land, where the vampire Matis Gemdimis found him several weeks later. 

___________________________________________________________________________

“Oh, Josef,” Quentin murmured. Tears stood on his cheeks and dripped from his eyes. “I’m so sorry.” 

Josef squeezed Quentin’s hand. Eliot and Margo looked on, their eyes equally bright, their faces grave. 

“I thought it important that you understand what I endured before I became a vampire so you know that when I lost Matis, that was the second time that my family slipped between my fingers. Perhaps with Matis it was--not easier, but I witnessed only the aftermath of his death. If I had seen him murdered, I might not have survived it.” 

“Your last name,” Eliot said. “When did you change it?” 

“When I met Matis. His middle name was Konstantin.” 

“You must have loved him very much,” Quentin smiled, and Josef nodded. 

“I did. I never expected to feel anything for anyone after his murder.” 

“But do you?” Quentin asked, and Josef smiled as he reached down to touch Quentin’s tawny hair. 

“Aye, lad,” he murmured. “I do.” 

As the sun rose and the sun struggled to make its way out from behind the clouds, Eliot and Quentin retired to a bed in Josef’s guest room, where they stripped down to nothing and curled up with each other. Quentin nuzzled the dark hair on Eliot’s chest and looked up at him. 

“Do you think he’ll come with us?” 

“I don’t know, my sweetling,” Eliot replied. Before retiring, Josef had asked his friends for time to think their offer over. “He’s lived here for many years and may not want to leave. But even if he doesn’t, we can always visit, or he can come to Paris to see us.” 

“That’s not the same thing,” Quentin said, and Eliot touched his companion’s lower lip. 

“I know. But Josef has to do what’s best for him and his life, not to please us.” 

Quentin closed his eyes a moment. 

“I never imagined it was like that for him. Seeing his family die, and then all those filthy men--Gods, no wonder he has a hard time trusting people. Who do you think it was, El? The one who made him? Do you think he was already on board when the ship left port?” 

“I do,” Eliot nodded. “Probably figured the men on board and even Josef would make for easy pickings once the ship was out on open water. But then, for whatever reason, it spared Josef and gave him a second chance.” 

“Those memories must be difficult,” Quentin sighed as he nestled closer to Eliot, their bellies touching. “But I’m glad he survived.” 

“So am I, Q.” Eliot kissed his forehead. “Go to sleep now, love.” 

___________________________________________________________________________

Eliot, Quentin, and Margo tarried at Josef’s home for another four days before Josef called them all into the library, Phineas included. Quentin thought he might have held his breath if he’d still needed to breathe at all. Josef sat in his chair by the fire, stirred the embers, then tapped the fingers of both hands together in thought. 

“It occurs to me,” he began finally, “that perhaps the universe is giving me not a second chance or even a third. I have come back from death and near death several times since I left my homeland, and I think perhaps the arrival of you three is the universe’s way of telling me this is my last chance. And that I shouldn’t let it slip away.” 

“Then . . .?” Quentin asked, folding his hands tight in his lap so he didn’t fidget with them, and Josef nodded. 

“I’ve decided to accept your invitation. Phineas and I will come with you to Paris.” 

“Josef!” Quentin sprang up like a joyful jack-in-the-box and flung himself into the older man’s lap. Josef blinked in surprise and then shook his head in a rueful way as Quentin hugged him. Eliot and Margo watched. 

“You’ll have to forgive him,” Eliot said. “He retained more of a human touch than we expected when I turned him.”  


“You never seemed to mind all that much!” Quentin smiled at his companion over one shoulder before giving Josef a warm kiss on the mouth. Josef accepted it, returned it, as he stroked a hand over Quentin’s hair. 

“As long as we’re here, I want you all to know I’ve made a decision too,” Margo spoke up. 

The others turned toward her and she took a deep breath. 

“Before all this happened, I don’t think I realized what it really meant to be a vampire--to actually have people to protect. I want that . . . I want us to always protect each other. I want you to turn me.” 

Eliot stepped forward. 

“Margo! Are you sure?” 

“Yes, El! I know you’ve offered it to me in the past and I’ve either put you off or turned you down. And there’s been a few times I was an absolute rude bitch about it.” 

“Yes,” Eliot agreed without hesitation, and Margo eyed him. 

“And I apologize for those times,” she continued, “Because for a while the idea scared me and El, you know me . . . when I get scared, I get angry, too.” 

“I know.” He went to her and took her hands. “But the offer still stands.” 

Margo kissed his cheek and then glanced at Josef. “Josef, do you know if more than one vampire can sire one human? If you all fed from me and then I drank from each of you?” 

Josef considered this for a moment and then nodded. 

“It’s a rarity but I know it’s possible.” 

“Then that’s what I want,” Margo said as her dark eyes ticked from Josef, to Quentin, then to Eliot. “I want all three of you to sire me. Tonight.” 

The three vampires exchanged glances and then Eliot’s expression warmed before he nodded. Quentin spread a thick blanket in front of the fire as Eliot and Josef led her over. Margo sat, her legs tucked under her. Eliot touched her face before reaching out to unbutton her blouse, exposing her throat. Quentin sat on one side, Eliot the other, while Josef knelt behind her. 

“Don’t be afraid, all right?” Eliot said to her. She smiled and touched his face. 

“You damned fool,” she said, leaning into his touch. “I used to be. I’m not anymore.” 

Eliot smiled as he leaned in to kiss her throat until he felt her relax in his hold, then slipped his fangs into her skin, next to the jugular. She twitched and Quentin bit her on the other side, draining her in tandem with Eliot. Josef stroked the back of her neck and then bit her from behind. All three honed in on her heartbeat, listening for that pause, that moment just before the heart gives up on its cycle. The vampires pulled back then, biting into each others’ wrists and exchanging blood-tinged kisses before each of them fed Margo from their wounds. Eliot helped her lie back on the blanket and they watched her shudder through the last few breaths of her human life. She stilled, died, and then her complexion bloomed fresh--a pale rose with blood-red lips and flashing dark eyes. She stared up at Eliot as they helped her sit up, and Margo looked around as if stunned. 

“My God,” she whispered. “Everything is so different!” She turned to look at Phineas as his thermal heat caught her senses. He approached her with a fresh glass of blood. 

“The miss is hungry, no doubt!” He said, and she took the glass from the tray, sipping from it in a relieved manner. 

“Thank you, Phineas.” She drained half and set it down as she felt the tug of the sire bond. Looking at the three men, she both desired and cherished them, even Josef--especially Josef, in a way, as she realized the attraction she’d been trying to deny was, in fact, undeniable. 

_ When we get back to Paris, _ she thought,  _ I’m going to seduce the hell out of that man _ . 

“Are you all right, Margo?” Quentin asked, and she nodded as she pushed her hair back with one hand. It was thicker and more lustrous now. 

“I must admit I feel different, but it’s not a terrible thing. You think of being a vampire . . . being undead, and whether if it’s what the universe meant for you.” 

“Do you mean God?” Josef asked, and Margo took another sip from her glass. 

“God or whatever spins this damn planet and scattered us here like grass seeds.” 

“Whatever God you like to believe in, I welcome you to it,” Josef nodded. “But I stopped believing in helpful deities the day a British soldier--one who burned down my home with my mother and sister inside--sold me to a crew of rapists for a few crown. I prayed to God to help me, and what answered was something different--something better, as it turns out.” Josef smiled. And that’s what I think of when I wonder if our kind truly has a place in this world.” 

____________________________________________________________________________

The following week, Josef announced his intention to sell the house on the hill and move to Paris with his new friends. Most people in Vilnius expressed shock at this decision, but others believed that living with Matis’ memory might be easier if he was away from the place where his murder happened. Eliot contacted a few people back in Paris to arrange for a new add-on to his home, and Quentin, pleased at the prospect of reopening his shop, ordered some new books. 

About four weeks later, Quentin received a letter with an American Postmark. He tore open the envelope, frowning curiously, then his eyes lit up. 

“El, Margo! It’s from Alice! Alice Quinn!” 

“Alice!” Margo said as she came into the room. “Then that means--” 

Quentin nodded and held up a hand. 

_ Dear Quentin,  _

_ I am sure you’re shocked (and hopefully pleased) to receive this letter. The Brakebills dean told me you’d left the country but that you’d written to the campus herbalist at least twice, and I hope you still tarry at that address so this letter reaches you. _

_ The magical plague is over, and those who were affected by it came out of their stupors. For some, it happened right away and for others, it took a day or two. They reopened Brakebills just last week but something tells me you aren’t coming back. Do you know what happened to Margo Hanson? If she’s with you, I hope she’s well. There are far too few powerful women magicians in the world, and I think she could be one of them.  _

_ The dean says you had something to do with ending the plague and that we’ll all learn the story soon enough. Knowing him, he’ll quiz us on it!  _

_ I just wanted to let you know that I’m well and I have my magic back. If you’re responsible for that, Q, then thank you. Thank you and good luck.  _

_ Your Friend.  _

_ Alice Quinn  _

“The curse ended when Braye ended,” Quentin said, folding the letter and tucking it into his vest. “Those who lost their magic to the curse have it back, and Brakebills is back in business.” 

“You don’t plan to go back, do you, Quentin?” Eliot asked, and Quentin shook his head. 

“No. I believe I learned more about magic during all of this than I ever would have at Brakebills. I’ll just continue my independent study. Who knows, maybe one day if there are other vampire-magician hybrids, I’ll open a school just for them. A night school, of course.” 

“The Paris School of Vampyric Magical Pedagogy,” Eliot said. “That rather has a ring to it!”

“If you enjoy watching your children being chased home from school by a crowd of torch-wielding villagers, yes,” Josef commented from behind a copy of the village newspaper. A boy brought him the twice-weekly publication, painstakingly printed by the new print shop in town. Eliot chuffed laughter. 

“Okay, so we’ll think of another word besides “vampyric.” 

“Magical Night School,” Quentin smiled. “And I’ll welcome all different kinds of students!” 

Eliot took his companion’s hands, pulled him close, spun him elegantly, then kissed his lips. 

“You’re never going to be a soulless monster like the rest of us, are you, Quentin Coldwater?” He asked. 

“Braye and the Order . . . they were the soulless ones. They wanted to reorder magic, control it.” 

“Do you think we can do any better, Q?: Eliot asked, and Quentin thought of his companion’s courage in the underground chamber of The Sterling Wizard's Guild. 

“I know we can.” 


	20. 20

_ Paris  _

_ 6 months later  _

“Josef? Are you up here?” 

Josef turned at the sound of Eliot’s voice. He stood on the private balcony that jutted out from the rooms they’d added on for him upon their return to Paris. A pair of elegant white double doors guarded the room from rain and cold on foul weather days, but the balcony faced west and the first few moments after the sun vanished from the horizon completely was his favorite time of day--his own type of sunrise, one might say. Tonight, the air smelled of rain in the near distance, mixed with blooming lilac and apple blossoms. Another spring. How many had he seen? Hundreds, perhaps more. 

“Yes, I’m here,” he replied, and Eliot and Quentin stepped onto the roomy balcony a moment later. 

“Lovely night,” Eliot commented as he looked out over the countryside, and Josef nodded. 

“I smell rain in the distance.” 

“It’s good for the grapevines,” Eliot replied, then sat in a wrought iron chair nearby. “Josef, Q and I wanted to talk to you.” 

“All right, what about?” 

“About us,” Quentin replied. “You’ve made a physical connection with Margo and she says you’re a fantastic lover. We were hoping that would happen so the four of us could balance our relationship. But, uhm . . .” 

“You haven’t made that connection yet with us,” Eliot finished for his companion. “I know we all needed time to heal from what happened in Romania, but--after six months, Quentin and I wanted to know if there’s something we’ve done wrong.” 

“Margo is right,” Josef shook his head. “You’re both fanged fools.” 

“What’s that mean?” Quentin asked, frowning, and Josef turned to face them both. 

“Why would my hesitation be any fault of yours? I’m aware of it, it vexes me, surely, but no, it’s nothing you’ve done.” He paused. “Matis and I--we had a good relationship. We shared many things, including pleasure, but never in the way that’s most intimate. He never tried to approach me that way, perhaps because he knew what I endured on that ship. I--I was a virgin when the rapes occurred, and while I had a few women when Matis would bring them to our bed, there was never any question of whether I would submit . . . he left the choice to me, completely. And I never addressed it.” 

“That night the three of us fed together,” Quentin said. “Did you enjoy that?” 

“Very much, lad,” Josef nodded. “And for the first time in my long life, I wonder what that might be like with people who care about you.” 

“Do you wonder it now?” Eliot asked, and Josef nodded. Quentin chewed on his lower lip for a moment and then brightened.

“I think I have the answer,” he said. “Josef, come to our bedroom with us.” 

Eliot rose and the three of them linked hands after leaving the balcony and heading down the hall to Quentin and Eliot’s room. Black and purple abounded here, with lighter seafoam accents. Fresh flowers breathed their scent into the air, and one entire wall, converted into a massive bookshelf, held Quentin’s books, journals, and writing paraphernalia. An oak rolltop desk took up most of one corner, and two comfortable chairs, side by side, took up the other. The bed’s duvet, the color of ripe plums, dominated the large bed. Eliot turned to his companion. 

“What’s your answer, Q?” He asked, and Quentin smiled. 

“Josef said he wondered what it might be like with people who care about you. I think we should show him.” 

Eliot’s eyebrows climbed. 

“You mean, have him watch us.” 

“Precisely,” Quentin nodded. 

“Perhaps that would help,” Josef mused as he sat down in one of the chairs. “Seeing it from a different perspective instead of relying on my own traumatic memories.” 

“You’re okay with that, aren’t you, El?” He asked, and Eliot smiled. 

“If you mean do I have any inhibitions about someone watching me love you, no, I really don’t. Shame is for humans.” 

“El!” 

“It’s true,” Josef chuckled as he sat back in the chair. “I don’t preoccupy myself with worry over it myself.” 

“Then it seems we made a good match,” Eliot replied as he began to unbutton Quentin’s shirt. He reached the bottom button, pulled the two halves open, and leaned in to kiss Quentin’s chest. The younger man sighed and touched Eliot’s soft brunette curls and then gave a small cry of pleasure as Eliot’s lips found a nipple and began to tease it as he peeled Quentin’s shirt off the rest of the way. Quentin returned the favor, unbuttoning Eliot’s vest and removing it before unbuttoning the smart paisley button-down he wore. He tugged it off and set it aside before he surrendered to a deep kiss from his partner. They tumbled onto the bed together and Josef moved his chair closer to watch. Matis had always been a bit clinical about pleasure, getting down to business and always ensuring that Josef enjoyed himself, but tenderness hadn’t been a part of his personality. 

“I want to taste every part of you, my sweet one,” Eliot murmured, then traced his fangs along Quentin’s neck and down his chest before giving his other nipple a sharp nip. Quentin gasped, but it was a sound of pleasure and encouragement. Eliot had him lie back and he undid his companion’s slacks, unbuttoning the fly and tugging them down, then off. Quentin’s cock, already interested in the proceedings, twitched and flexed as Eliot gave it a few playful licks and then kissed the head. 

“Yes, Gods,” Quentin moaned, and then Eliot ducked back up to kiss around Quentin’s belly, watching the muscles there quiver.

“You . . . tease!” Quentin groaned, and Eliot chuckled. 

“Can I help it that you’re so beautiful and I just want to love every inch of you?” Eliot stood long enough to strip the rest of the way, standing to the side so Josef could get a good look at his naked form. The men in the hold had felt huge to him and Eliot looked even larger, but he knew he had nothing to fear. Eliot gripped his own erection and gave it a few slow tugs, feeling Josef’s eyes on him. Quentin watched too, licking his lips as his hips rolled in desire. 

“Do you want to suck me, Q?” Eliot asked. “To get me ready?” 

“Yes!” Quentin’s tone, filled with eagerness, made Josef arch a brow; having experienced this, he didn’t see how being on the giving end could make anyone feel excited. Eliot knelt on the bed as Quentin rolled onto all fours, crawling up to Eliot and kissing and licking the head of his erection with obvious enjoyment. He toyed with the head, tipping his eyes up to Eliot’s, and his partner watched, amber eyes hooded and gleaming.

“Oh, that’s so good. My good, sweet baby,” Eliot sighed, and Quentin opened his mouth wide to take in as much of the stiff flesh as he could, and Josef blinked. Surely Quentin couldn’t be enjoying . . . but he was, and the way he moaned and smacked around the flesh was no act. But then, Eliot was clean and took care with his appearance, so maybe--

_ Maybe Eliot tastes good _ , his mind supplied.  _ You don’t make faces like that when you have a mouthful of something nasty. _

Eliot toyed with Quentin’s hair as his companion sucked, his head bobbing, until Eliot pulled away, his erection trembling. 

“Don’t want to finish that way, baby,” he smiled, then coaxed him onto his back. Quentin submitted, his body language suggesting a kind of pleasurable surrender, and he spread his thighs. Eliot lifted his legs and shifted him back as he positioned himself. He held out one hand and a bottle of scented oil jumped off the dresser and into his hand, like a trained mouse performing a trick. Eliot pulled the stopper and coated two fingers with some of the oil before setting it aside. Quentin gazed up at him, and Josef saw only trust in those dark, limpid eyes. Then those fingers went to work, sliding, stretching, and Quentin’s hips rocked in time with the motions. Eliot nodded, smiling. 

“Just like that . . . feels good, doesn’t it Q? Look how pretty you are, with that beautiful erection.” He leaned over and kissed the tip, licking away a drop of fluid. “Are you ready for me? Are you ready to show Josef how good it can be?” 

“Yes, want you so bad, El!” He stared at Eliot’s hardon with eagerness. “Please!” 

“Oh, I do like it when you’re polite,” Eliot grinned before positioning himself. Quentin trembled out another noise of desire and then he squirmed and bucked as Eliot began to fill him. Josef could see how the oil eased the way and allowed them each to enjoy the friction. He watched, barely aware that his right hand had strayed into his lap and that he was cupping and squeezing himself through his slacks. Eliot glanced over. 

“Make yourself comfortable, Josef love,” he smiled, and Josef freed his haf-hard cock from the fly of his slacks. Eliot gave it an appreciative once over as he slid into Quentin to the hilt, testes bumping against Quentin’s perineum. Eliot pushed Quentin’s legs back, bending them at the knees, and then began to fuck him with deep, long strokes. Quentin made small noises that Josef found he liked a great deal and touched himself again, fingers playing up and down the length of his erection. 

“El, oh Gods,” Quentin groaned as he held onto Eliot’s biceps and let the taller magician pound away at him. Josef noticed sparks of energy jumping between them as they coupled--their magic connecting, he supposed. He wondered what he might see if he allowed Eliot to mount him. 

“My sweet Q, my beloved . . .” Eliot groaned, slowing the pace of his strokes slightly so he’d last longer and show Josef what it was truly like--not pain and fear but a connection that would make him feel safe, loved, cherished. 

“Feels so good,” Quentin tightened his hold on Eliot’s arms. “El . . . I’m getting close . . .” 

“Yes, Q, can feel you tensing up,” He smiled and then glanced over at Josef, who was stroking himself in earnest now, his cock fully erect and leaking. “Isn’t our Q beautiful, Josef? Look how much he loves it, how good it feels.” He reached down and gripped Quentin’s erection, giving it a series of gentle touches and a few firm strokes that had Quentin trembling and then going perfectly still, his frame shuddering as he let out a soft cry and came hard over Eliot’s hand and his own belly. Eliot stroked him until the spasm started to subside and then pulled him close, riding out his own pleasure until he climaxed, holding Quentin close and rocking his hips. At the same moment he heard Josef make a low, excited sound as he finished as well, dark eyes flashing with excitement. Eliot held out a hand and Josef went to him. Eliot pulled away from his companion and tugged Josef onto the bed, settling him between himself and Quentin. Quentin turned, his expression like that of a happy cat, and gave Josef’s shoulder a playful kiss and nip. 

Josef turned toward him and they kissed. Eliot stroked Josef’s hair as he spooned the older vampire and watched him and Quentin kiss and touch each other. 

“We have so much to show you, Josef,” Eliot smiled. Josef curled a lock of Quentin’s hair around one finger and then glanced back at Eliot. 

“I admit, it’s been quite a transition. Paris is so different from Lithuania and I lived there for so long . . . but it’s strange how your neighbors and the people in town have accepted me. The patrons at Quentin’s bookstore, especially.” 

“I’m glad you like working with me,” Quentin nodded. “You’re welcome to until you can find something of your own to pursue--if that’s what you want.” 

“I was good with horses as a lad, but that’s not exactly something I can do now, unless Paris has some sort of midnight racing underground I don’t know about.” 

“I’m afraid not,” Eliot chuckled, and then put a hand on Josef’s arm. “But there is something else you’d be good at, something I wish I’d had when I was first turned.” 

Josef turned toward Eliot, curious, and Eliot took his hands. 

“Listen . . . “ 


	21. Epilogue

_ Brakebills U.S.  _

_ The present  _

“Good evening, Professor Kostan!” 

“Good night, professor!” 

Josef stood at the door to his classroom and watched his charges leave, returning their salutations. They ranged in age from about sixteen to thirty, but they all had one thing common: they’d been turned by sires who hadn’t stuck around to teach them the finer points of how to survive. His instruction school, which started out as a small building adjacent to Quentin’s bookstore, now took up six buildings at Brakebills U.S. 

The five of them--Eliot, Margo, Quentin, Josef, and Phineas--left Paris in the late 1930s when it seemed war was imminent and Brakebills would provide them with a safe haven. Having rescued magic from the jaws of a man who wanted to control it all, Brakebill's administration welcomed them with open arms and allowed Josef to open his instruction school--the Matis Gemdimis Memorial College of Vampyric Pedagogy--on campus. Quentin opened a second bookstore on the Brakebills grounds and a third in Manhattan, which proved so popular with the city’s nightlife crowd that he added a coffee shop to it seven months later. The progression of technology allowed Margo to move her fashion business almost completely to online purchasing, where it thrived like never before. Eliot held interests in vineyards from the United States to Paris to Greece and owned several successful labels. 

The four of them found it simple to blend in with Manhattan’s energy, and few noticed their comings and going and tendency to sleep days and work nights, as many in the city lived this lifestyle and saw nothing unusual about it. They had plenty of donors, and unlike the old days, Eliot no longer had to worry about where his next meal of magical blood would come from. They pooled some of their income and bought a brownstone near Central Park, not too far from where John Lennon and Yoko Ono once lived. Josef enjoyed evening horse-and-carriage rides during the summer, and when the snow came, Quentin taught them how to make snowmen and ice skate. 

For Josef, it was a far cry from the life he’d gotten so accustomed to after Matis’ murder, living in solitude except for Phineas, (the old man’s magical lineage had given him a long life and he’d passed in his sleep in the spring of 1952.) The connection he’d made with Eliot, Quentin, and Margo was more intimate than he’d imagined one could be, and with bounties on vampires a thing of the past, Josef found himself content, a sensation he hadn’t enjoyed since before his father had announced his intent to fight the British and left Josef in charge of their home in Ireland. 

“Ready to head home, Professor Kostan?” Quentin asked from the doorway, nudging Josef from his thoughts. Eliot and Margo stood behind him, laughing at some anecdote. 

“I’m ready.” He locked up the room and Quentin took his hand while Eliot took his other, then linked up with Margo as well. They left the building that way and walked out into the warm summer night. 

“It’s at least an hour till dawn,” Eliot said. “We could call in a donor or two, have a drink.” 

“That sounds perfect,” Margo nodded. “I’m starving!” 

“Q, do you want to do the honors?” Eliot asked, and Quentin lifted both hands to create a portal back to their apartment. It glowed, a steady swirling mass of pastel colors, and the four of them walked through together, hands, minds, and souls eternally and inextricably linked. 

THE END


End file.
